Trent Weiss

Trent Weiss is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering whose research is focused on electrochemical technologies, particularly lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), a promising technology for decarbonizing transportation, energy, and other sectors. As a MathWorks Fellow, Trent will address shortfalls in current LIBs using MATLAB-based modeling to explore an alternate cell-level architecture with the aim of developing a convection-enhanced LIB with improved storage capacity and charging/discharge rates. A central aim of his project is to advance our understanding of how convection improves mass and thermal transport. His future objectives include explorations of the structure-property relations for convection battery electrodes and identifying trends that inform specific values for different chemistries, cell configurations, and applications to reduce the experimental design space. His work in conventional LIBs may be generalizable to other intercalation chemistries, such as alternative metal-ion batteries and redox reservoirs useful for electrochemical energy storage or ion separation. Trent’s research has the potential to advance new concepts for electrochemical energy storage, thereby helping to enable the deep decarbonization of electricity generation, transportation, and industrial processes.