Brandon J. Hopkins
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow

My research vision is to enable multifunctional electrochemical energy systems that boost system-level energy density. Conventional electrochemical energy systems such as batteries, capacitors, and fuel cells are reaching fundamental energy-density limits. To overcome these limitations, I will increase the functionality of these systems. For example, if the airframe of an electric aircraft could also function as a battery, the aircraft could store more energy without a weight or volume penalty, boosting range by 40 to 70%. In this talk, I highlight my work that lays a foundation to enable this idea. I discuss (1) why a zinc–air battery chemistry is promising for this concept; (2) how to efficiently increase the specific energy of electrically rechargeable zinc–air batteries; (3) a manufacturing method to create dendrite-free zinc electrodes that allow for high specific energy; (4) a meta-analysis showing a promising route to enable load-bearing zinc–air batteries; and (5) technical challenges and fundamental questions that I will address at Michigan to realize a load-bearing zinc–air battery for electric aircraft.

About the speaker...
Brandon J. Hopkins is a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory currently focused on advancing sustainable battery materials and systems with Dr. Debra R. Rolison. Hopkins received his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he created corrosion-mitigation methods for aqueous metal–air batteries with professors Yang Shao-Horn and Douglas P. Hart. As a master's candidate at MIT, he was part of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research where he designed and fabricated gravity-driven flow batteries using semi-solid suspensions with professors Yet-Ming Chiang and Alexander H. Slocum. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and interned at Akamai Technologies and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.