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Energy Materials Engineering Lab
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A lab that designs inorganic materials for energy generation, starting from the behavior of point defects.
AboutAbout the lab
Mastering energy materials, starting from point defects.
The Energy Materials Engineering Lab aims to improve both the efficiency of producing energy and the efficiency of using it by exploring innovative functions of inorganic materials.
The key is the behavior of point defects formed inside materials and the chemical reactions that occur on solid surfaces through them.
The lab carries out everything in-house, from sample preparation to the measurement of properties and reactions, and combines this with first-principles calculations, machine learning, and electrochemical measurements.
The materials it works with are centered on perovskite-type oxides, including proton-conducting electrolytes, fuel cell electrodes, and photocatalysts.
Key terms
- Point Defect
- A disorder at the scale of a single atom in a crystal, where an atom is missing or has been replaced by a different atom
- Perovskite-Type Oxide
- A family of oxides with a framework of connected octahedra. Their properties are easy to tune by changing the composition
- Proton Conduction
- The process in which hydrogen ions (protons) move through a solid and carry electric charge
- First-Principles Calculation
- A method that calculates the properties of matter from the principles of quantum mechanics, without fitting to experimental data
NewsLab news
A master's student won the Excellent Poster Presentation Award at the 20th Solid State Ionics Seminar
A master's student won the Electrochemistry Poster Award at the 63rd Joint Convention of Chemistry-Related Branches in Kyushu
Associate Professor Susumu Fujii received the Young Scientists' Prize, part of the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Research by Professor Yamazaki and colleagues was published in the journal Solid State Ionics
Research by Professor Yamazaki and colleagues was published in Nature Materials, and a press release was issued
ResearchResearch themes
The lab studies the elemental technologies and energy materials essential to a sustainable energy society. It aims to create an energy cycle by combining technologies that store solar and thermal energy in chemical substances such as hydrogen with solid oxide fuel cells that generate electricity from those chemicals with high efficiency.
*Illustrative imageAccelerating Materials Discovery with AI
The lab develops methods that combine AI, machine learning, and first-principles calculations to predict material properties even from sparse experimental data. By incorporating physicochemical interpretations that had not been used before as machine learning features, it discovered a new proton-conducting electrolyte in a single round of trial synthesis.
*Illustrative imageSplitting Water with Heat to Produce Hydrogen
When a metal oxide is placed at high temperature, part of it is reduced and releases oxygen, leaving behind oxygen vacancies. If the temperature is then lowered sharply and the oxide is exposed to water vapor, those vacancies are filled with oxygen from the water, and hydrogen is produced. The lab was a world pioneer in demonstrating this thermochemical water splitting using perovskite-type oxides, and is improving its efficiency based on the thermodynamics and kinetics of point defects.
*Illustrative imagePhotocatalysts That Split Water with Light
When light with energy above the band gap enters a semiconductor photocatalyst, electrons and holes are generated. If these can be used for the reduction of protons and the oxidation of water, water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen. Because the properties of a photocatalyst depend heavily on the band gap and point defects of the oxide, the lab quantitatively investigates this relationship from a materials science perspective.
*Illustrative imageDispersing Metal Particles on Oxide Powder
When methane is sent to a catalyst together with steam, hydrogen and carbon monoxide are obtained. A catalytic reaction consists of elementary steps such as adsorption, dissociation, diffusion, and electron transfer, and the slowest step determines the overall rate. By linking the surface and bulk properties of metals and oxides to reaction rates, the lab aims to establish design guidelines for high-performance catalysts.
MembersFaculty
The Energy Materials Engineering Lab consists of faculty members, academic researchers, technical staff, administrative assistants, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.
- ProfessorYoshihiro Yamazaki
- Associate ProfessorSusumu Fujii
- Project Assistant ProfessorKota Tsujikawa
- Project Assistant ProfessorTakuya Naruse
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Perovskite crystal structure” Oregon State University / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Accelerating Materials Discovery with AI: “Gold Pan” Nate Cull / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Splitting Water with Heat to Produce Hydrogen: “Solar Furnace ( )” Mike McBey / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Photocatalysts That Split Water with Light: “Backlit ficus elastica leaf texture 2014 02” Julian Herzog / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Dispersing Metal Particles on Oxide Powder: “Rock covered with multicolored patches of lichen” Tomascastelazo / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (機能性材料・物性評価研究室): “Magnetron sputtering gun” Tavoromann / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (半導体工学研究室): “Voyager Program - RTG upclose” NASA/JPL / Public domain (cropped)
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（中野 博昭） ): “Scrap metal recycling facility in Longview, Washington's industrial zone” Quintin Soloviev / CC BY 4.0 (cropped) - Related lab (薄膜工学研究室): “Cross-Shaped Transmon with 2 Josephson Junctions” OJB Quantum / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
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