Autonomous Laboratories for Advancing Energy Materials

Presenter: Dr. Yan Zeng

Affiliation/Organization: Florida State University

Location: Kunsela Auditorium (A112)

Description/Bio:

Dr. Yan Zeng, Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University, leads a research group on discovering and advancing materials for energy storage, accelerating materials synthesis using robotics, AI, and data-driven tools, and designing chemical processes to convert minerals to battery materials. Before moving to Florida, Zeng was a Staff Scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she led the buildout of an autonomous inorganic solid-state synthesis laboratory (the A-Lab) with Prof. Gerbrand Ceder.

In this talk, Zeng shares how recent advances in automation, robotics, AI, and computational modeling are helping to accelerate the development of advanced materials, which is slowed down by challenges in the synthesis process. Zeng will share two accelerated workflows for powdered materials: a solid-state approach focusing on metal oxides and how synthesis parameters affect phase formation, and a wet-chemical method using Pourbaix diagrams to manage complex aqueous environments. Together, these strategies streamline experimentation and enhance the discovery of new energy-relevant materials.