Catalyzing Innovation in Rechargeable Batteries R&D through Multiscale Computations Seminar

Speaker information

Prof Alejandro Franco, Université de Picardie Jules Verne. Alejandro A. Franco (www.modelling-electrochemistry.com) is Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) and Full Professor at the Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimie des Solides (Université de Picardie Jules Verne -UPJV- and CNRS, Amiens). He headed the Modelling Group of Electrochemical Systems at CEA (Grenoble) in the period January 2006-January 2013. For more than 15 years, his research activities concerns understanding physico-electrochemical processes by means of multi-scale modelling approaches and numerical simulations, applied to electrochemical power generators such as Li-ion, Li-S and Li-air batteries, Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs) and Water Electrolyzers. He is the inventor of the MEMEPhys computational software and of the MS LIBER-T simulation package, scaling up ab initio and microstructural data at the electrochemical device level. He is author of 19 granted patents (+1 pending) in the field of electrochemical devices, of 58 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, of 10 book chapters, of more than 108 oral presentations including 43 invited lectures in international conferences, 30 invited seminars in first class universities and research institutes (University of Cambridge, Pittsburgh University, MIT, Texas A&M University, Argonne National Lab, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Max Planck Institute, National Research Council of Canada, University of British Columbia, Stanford University, National Institut of Chemistry of Slovenia, Bosch, Samsung, Renault…). He edited by invitation of 3 international books on the topic of electrochemical energy conversion and storage (Pan Stanford/CRC, Woodhead/Elsevier, Springer UK) and of 2 special issues of the journal Electrochimica Acta (2011 and 2013), and he is currently writing by invitation 2 full book on multiscale modeling of batteries and fuel cells modeling of fuel cells and batteries (Springer USA and Elsevier). He is the organizer, by invitation, of 9 international conferences and symposia including 7 on electrochemical devices and modeling within the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) (Nice 2010, Niigata 2011, Prague 2012, Queretaro 2013, Taipei 2015, Providence 2017, Bologna 2018). He has also organized 2 international school on modeling of electrochemical energy devices (ALISTORE ERI Amiens 2016, ICTP Trieste 2016) delivered several invited tutorials on practical aspects of multi-scale modelling of electrochemical energy devices within the ISE (2013), the European Centre for Atomic and Molecular Computing (CECAM) (2013), the american Electrochemical Society (ECS) (2014) and the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (2016). He is also involved in teaching activities at UPJV, including two lecture-series he created on “Fuel Cells” within the Erasmus Master on Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion (MESC) and on “Non-equilibrium thermodynamics” within the Doctoral School of UPJV. Since 2016 Prof. Franco uses an immersive and interactive Virtual Reality tool for the practices associated with his lectures. In 2005, he was finalist for the Young Scientist Award from the International Society for Solid State Ionics, in 2014 he was laureate by the Region Picardie with a project within the programme “new hosted top level researchers” and since 2015 he is recipient of the national bonus for excellence in research (P.E.D.R.). In 2016 he was recognized as Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) and his position at IUF is for 5 years.