18^th International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science and Engineering May 28-30, 2018 Osaka, Japan

Biography:

M. D. Anderson Chair Professor. He received Ph.D. degree from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is experienced in materials synthesis, physics, and applications, and has made seminar contributions to the fields of high temperature superconductors, carbon nanotubes, thermoelectric materials, flexible transparent electrodes, efficient catalyst for water splitting, nanosheets for enhanced oil recovery, etc. He has published ~440 journal papers, 39 issued patents. He received the 2008 R&D 100 Award and the 2014 Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Science from TAMEST. He is an elected fellow of APS, AAAS, and the National Academy of Inventors.

Abstract:

Significant progress has been made on searching for good thermoelectric materials with high thermoelctric figure-of-merit (ZT) in the last two decades for improving the energy conversion efficiency from heat to electricity. We found nanostructure approach is especially helpful in increasing the ZT. Recently we have achieved a significant advance in improving the ZTs of half-Heuslers and Zintl materials. These materials may find promissing applications in power generation from heat sources in mid-high temperature range. 

Biography:

M.Ozawa, Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), started his carier in 1975 as a researcher at the Tokai-Reprocessing Plant of PNC, reserached at IHCh/KfK in West Germany during 1981-1982, and has completed his PhD in 1993 from the University of Tokyo. He was a professor (2011-2016) and the chair (2014-2016) of the Deapartment of Nuclear Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Tech.. He has published more than 110 papers in reputed scientific journals and international conferences, has been serving as an editorial board member of 5 journals including J. of Radioanal. Nucl. Chemistry.

 

Abstract:

The spent nuclear fuel (SF) and high-level liquid waste (HLLW) must no longer be radioactive waste but a potential vein of rare metal. It is therefore quite natural that such non or less radioactive fission products (FPs) as Mo, Pd, In and REE (La, Nd, Dy, etc.) in SF or HLLW should be recovered and utilized as the secondary resource. Pd-Ru-Rh-TcO₂-based multi-element deposits from simulated HLLW by under-potential deposition (UPD) showed high catalytic reactivity for electrolytic H₂ production, and thereby being the substitute material to Pt electrode [1]. In Après ORIENT research [2], initiated in 2011 at Tokyo Tech, the program relies on the extensive transmutation of FPs in the fast reactor by neutron capture reaction followed by β^- decay like, _ZFP^A (n,γ ) _Z FP^A+1 → _Z+1NRM^A+1 + β^-_, where reloaded highly radioactive _ZFP^A are expected to turn to be stable or very short-lived nuclear rare metals, _Z+1NRM^A+1. Among 40 elements, Ba/La, Pr/Nd, Gd/Tb/Dy, Tc/Ru, and Rh/Pd are the most promising as transmutation pair of _ZFP^A/ _Z+1NRM^A+1 under the various points of resourceability [3]. Although non FPs pair, W/Re calls geopolitical and material attentions with creation of anti-high temperature superalloy. By applying a ZrD₂ moderator alternating to ZrH₂, an isotope fraction of radioactive Re¹⁸⁷ can be decreased to the less level than that of natural Re [4].  

Biography:

Dr. Itkis is an Adjunct Professor in the College of Engineering and a researcher in the Department of Chemistry and Center for Nanoscale Science&Engineering, University of California, Riverside. He is an author on more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, mostly in nanotechnology field, with number of citations exceeding 13,000, and h-index of 55. In 2011, he was recognized by Thomson Reuters as a world top 100 chemist of the past decade. He had earned a BS and MS from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Institute of Radio Engineering & Electronics, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract:

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are unique one-dimensional nanostructured materials, with outstanding optoelecronic properties, which can form two-dimensional possessing either metallic (MT) or semiconducting (SC) properties dependent on the SWNT chirality. MT-SWNTs thin films can be utilized as transparent conducting coating for large area touch screen displays, while the SC-SWNTs thin films can serve as active elements in logic circuits, photodetectors, solar cells and light emitting diodes. In this talk, a development of SWNT thin film applications in electrochromic cells and in UV and infrared photodetection will be discussed. Recently, we proposed a thin film of SC-SWNTs as a new electrochromic media and fabricated a nanotube thin film based electrochromic cell in which the active electrochromic layer is made of the film of SC-SWNTs and the counter-electrode is composed of the film of MT-SWNTs. With an ionic liquid utilized as an electrolyte, more than 100-fold increase of the operation speed (response time in millisecond range) was achieved as compared to traditional electrolyte based systems. In another development, SC-SWNT thin film and wide bandgap semiconductor were combined to manufacture a vertical heterojunction ultraviolet (UV) photodetector with SWNT film serving two functions at once: firstly, as a large area transparent conducting coating passing the UV light and  collecting the photocurrent, and secondly, as a semiconducting layer forming heterojunction with wide bandgap semiconductor ZnO. Thus, multifunctionality of SWNT thin films allows them to become a platform for the development of a variety of optoelectronic applications.