Engineering Commons^™

An Investigation Of High-Speed Consolidation And Repair Of Carbon Fiber - Epoxy Composites Through Ultrasonic Welding, David A. Hoskins

LSU Master's Theses

Adhesive repair of carbon fiber composite structures is commonly done on damaged structures to extend the service life. This method requires careful preparation of the damaged surface with intricate steps to ensure good bonding between the repair patch and the parent structure by means of an adhesive film. As with many forms of composite manufacturing, it is required to perform vacuum bagging, debulking, and a heated cure depending on the resin. All these steps make the repair process costly and time consuming.

In this present work, an alternative method of repair is investigated which explores the experimental feasibility of using …

Vanadium-Based Nanomaterials For Improved Zn Ion Storage, Jianwei Lai

LSU Master's Theses

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have been intensively studied as novel promising large-scale energy storage systems recently, owing to their advantages of high abundance, cost effectiveness, and high safety. However, the development of suitable cathode materials with superior performance are severely hampered by the sluggish kinetics of Zn²⁺ with divalent charge in the host structure.

Our Work demonstrates boosting the electrochemical performances of nanostructured cathode materials for aqueous ZIBs. The first project is focused on the interlayer-expanded V₆O₁₃∙nH₂O nanosheets as promising cathodes. Benefiting from the synthetic merits of its favorable architecture and expanded …

Concentration Flow Cells For Efficient Salinity Energy Recovery With Carbonized Peat Moss And Molybdenum Disulfide Electrodes, Haihui Zhu

LSU Master's Theses

The globally extractable salinity gradient (SG) energy from the mixing of seawater and river water is estimated to be 3% of worldwide electricity consumption. Here we applied carbonized peat moss (CPM) electrodes and molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) electrodes to a concentration flow cell that is capable of harvesting SG energy based on the electrode (pseudo-)capacitance together with the Donnan potential. The CPM electrodes were made from the visually inexhaustible peat moss by a facile pyrolysis process. With two identical CPM electrodes and a cation-exchange membrane, the cell produced a peak power density of 5.33 W m^-2 and an …