Chapter 273: Industry Benchmark

In the afternoon of the next day, the lecture hall of the MRS conference on lithium batteries was full of people.

Many people came to the meeting place early, waiting for the start of the report meeting in advance.

Standing at the door of the lecture hall, looking at the dark crowd inside, Lu Zhou couldn't help feeling his scalp tingle.

For some reason, he suddenly felt a tinge of admiration for Professor Sarot whom he met yesterday.

In a sense, for the jobs of a dozen or twenty researchers in the laboratory, for the research funding of tens of millions, it takes a certain amount of effort to come here with an imperfect project to compete with colleagues. of courage.

In this industry, colleagues are enemies, and those who are not in the same industry are also enemies.

Taking the direction of lithium-sulfur batteries as an example, the manganese dioxide nano-layer and the polymer solid-state electrolyte seem to be irrelevant at first glance, but in fact they are all to solve the shuttle of lithium-sulfur batteries. effect.

In fact, everyone's technology has black spots, it's just a matter of how much.

Everyone wants the industry to adopt their own solutions, invest in their own research, and keep their technologies "alive".

In the same way, although Lu Zhou's thesis ushered in the spring of the concept of lithium batteries, it also caused many project teams to be cut off funding, and many researchers lost their jobs for this. I believe many people are scolding behind their backs. over him.

But what surprised Lu Zhou was that when he stood on the podium and glanced down, he didn't see the person who was obviously waiting to find fault.

At least not in the front row that he could see.

On the contrary, those eyes are full of...

expect?

Although I wonder if I read it wrong, but the report meeting is about to start.

After calming down, Lu Zhou walked up to the podium, plugged the USB flash drive into the multimedia podium, and signaled to the staff next to him to drag him three whiteboards.

The usual reports on materials science do not need so much content written on the blackboard, but his report will naturally focus on mathematics.

Facing the venue that had gradually quieted down, Lu Zhou tried the microphone and spoke succinctly.

"As for the properties and preparation methods of the modified polydimethylsiloxane film, I have already made a fairly complete description in the paper. I believe you have read it before this report, so I won't go into details here."

After a pause, Lu Zhou continued, "Compared to the PDMS film, I believe you are more interested in how I discovered it."

Hearing this sentence, many people sitting under the stage nodded.

Not all the people sitting here are researchers or business representatives related to lithium battery interests. Many big names in the field of other organic materials are also sitting here at this moment.

For people of different research directions, what they are more curious about is not the PDMS material itself, but how Lu Zhou locked this material by establishing a mathematical model.

Responding to the pair of expectant eyes, Lu Zhou didn't waste time on the opening remarks, and went straight to the topic.

"In the initial stage of deposition, lithium ions usually acquire electrons and deposit on the current collector, which is considered to be a heterogeneous nucleation behavior. Because, this initial nucleation phenomenon will affect the final lithium deposition mode have a decisive impact, so my initial idea was to start from the initial stage of nucleation to solve the problem of irregular growth of lithium dendrites."

"Through SEM electron microscope observation, the root of the crystal nucleus soaked in the electrolyte can be seen as a spherical cap-shaped crystal nucleus deposited on a flat substrate, which is a three-dimensional spherical surface in the abstract. We can set θ to be the contact angle, and r is the radius of curvature, a is the radius of the contact surface, γ is the surface tension..."

Some things just cannot be explained clearly.

Lu Zhou picked up the marker pen and started writing on the whiteboard.

[Sv=(π/3)(2+cosθ)(1-cosθ)]

[Gt=(Gf+zFη/Ω)Svr+γSAr+(γSN-γSE)πrsinθ]

【…】

More and more formulas are written on the whiteboard.

The tip of the pen jumped on the whiteboard, and lines of calculations jumped out.

The entire mathematical model is like a carefully constructed skeleton, supporting the blood and flesh of the research results.

He knew every detail of it by heart, even if he hadn't recited it deliberately, Lu Zhou could deduce it smoothly on the spot.

The researchers sitting under the stage stared straight at the whiteboard, for fear of missing a detail.

Even so, there are very few people who can keep up with his rhythm.

Already unable to keep up with Lu Zhou's train of thought, Professor Krell took a deep breath and looked around anxiously.

When he noticed that Professor Bawandi from MIT who was sitting next to him was looking at the whiteboard with his arms folded, he couldn't help asking in a low voice.

"Do you understand?"

Professor Bawandi did not directly answer this question.

After pondering for a moment, he gave his evaluation in a relaxed tone, "Of course, it's a very interesting method."

Professor Bawandi studies quantum dot technology, not only in chemistry, but also in condensed matter physics.

Once the research field involves physics, it will make people feel strange that mathematics is not good.

After hearing Professor Bawandi's evaluation, Professor Krell looked helpless.

At this stage of the report meeting, he could no longer understand many things on the whiteboard.

It's not that he doesn't understand mathematics, it's just that he hasn't studied it so deeply. After all, materials science is a subject based on experiments, and most of the data are made, not calculated.

However, someone told him now that the role of computational materials science in the materials science laboratory is not only for supporting, but also for Kerry. Apart from doubting life, he seems to have no better way.

Perhaps, he had to take the time to study it carefully.

Time passed minute by minute.

Lu Zhou, who entered the state, seemed to have returned to the Princeton classroom, and the audience in the audience, all his students, were listening to his theory attentively.

Lu Zhou also responded with the greatest enthusiasm to those pairs of eyes seeking knowledge, and spread his theory to the public.

[τs=πD(C0EZc/2j)({ua+uc}/ua)...]

When the last line of calculation was written, Lu Zhou stopped the pen in his hand.

Taking two steps back, he looked up and down at the whiteboard in front of him, but didn't speak.

Staring at the back of this not tall but unusually stalwart, the audience was silent, and there was no sound, for fear that his breathing would be a little louder and interrupt the thinking of this big guy.

Five minutes passed like this.

Lu Zhou finally turned around and put the marker in his hand on the multimedia podium.

"That's basically it."

"Next is the questioning session. If there is anything you don't understand, you can raise it."

There was still silence in the venue.

No one stood up, raised a hand, or even said a word.

Even the meanest experts are silent at this moment, making people wonder whether this is really the scene of the MRS autumn meeting.

Gradually, the silence finally broke.

Those who came to their senses began to applaud.

"Papa..."

With the first, there is the second.

Soon thunderous applause filled the venue, like a storm.

Looking at the crowd applauding in the audience, Lu Zhou was slightly stunned.

What surprised him was not the applause, but that no one stood up to ask questions.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou couldn't help but have a strange expression.

tentatively……

As long as they understand it all.

Anyway, after the meeting, the American Society for Materials will print a thick brick-like collection of papers. If they are interested, they will naturally study what he said in detail.

As for what he had to do, he had already done it.

Lu Zhou signaled to the staff next to him that the meeting was over.

However, just as he was about to unplug the USB flash drive, he suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, by the way, I almost forgot, the PPT is not finished yet."

What I said just now was so hilarious that I almost forgot the "business".

Lu Zhou pressed the button on the laser pointer and quickly went through the rest of the PPT.

"There is nothing to say about the modified PDMS film. In the past two and a half months, I have done six sets of experiments here. After 1,000 to 2,000 Coulomb cycles, the macroscopic conditions inside the battery and the SEM images of the cross-section of the negative electrode material at the microscopic level."

This experiment is not difficult, but it is troublesome, especially time-consuming.

But in order to dispel the concerns of the industry, this experiment is necessary.

The PPT was frozen on the penultimate page, and Lu Zhou, who stopped the show, paused and continued.

"I believe that many people should be more interested in this."

There are indeed many people who are interested.

After 2000 coulomb cycles, the picture of the inside of the battery case that was spotless, the business representatives who sat in the back row and whispered to each other for almost the whole report meeting, stared at the PPT almost straightened their eyes.

The route to the New World is drawn on that map, and the "treasure" they dream of has never been so close.

There, is the future.

Now, someone has pointed out the course for them...