Three talks: Stanford Energy Seminar Student Lectures

Electric vehicle green charging with marginal emissions signals

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a promising clean transportation option, but they still release CO₂ emissions when charging from the electricity grid. Often, EV drivers charge their vehicles when it is cheap or convenient, not when grid carbon intensity is lowest. Green charging, or smart charging control, is a solution to this problem that optimizes to reduce emissions by shifting electricity demand in between and across charging sessions. In this talk, I will present and validate a green charging control strategy based on actual EV driver data and historical grid emissions. The basis for this control is marginal emissions, or the emissions released when a new generator must be dispatched to the grid, which we find performs better than using average grid emissions data.

Speaker: Sonia Martin, Stanford Sustainable Systems Lab

Understanding photoreactions across multiple length scales - in situ ETEM and reactor-scale studies of plasmonic photochemistry

Nanoscale metal structures can very strongly interact with light through a phenomenon called a plasmon resonance. These resonances collectively excite electrons which in turn drive chemical reactions in unique ways. The behavior of plasmonic photocatalysts is dictated by their nanostructure. Changing size and shape alters both inherent chemical reactivity and the nature in which light is channeled by the particle. These features, while much smaller than can be resolved by a traditional microscope, have a huge impact on performance. We utilize in-situ electron microscopy to control and study photochemistry with near-atomic resolution. We show that light can be used to control the presence of hydrogen within plasmonic catalysts and govern the most reactive sites on the catalyst’s surface. We further utilize bench-scale chemistry techniques to demonstrate improved chemical selectivity for light-driven hydrogenation chemistries instead of heat. Our efforts to understand photocatalysts at fundamental length scales will help design better materials for sustainable chemistry.

Speaker: Briley Bourgeois, Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Title TBA

Speaker: Dhruv Suri, Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University

Attend in person or online (see weblink)