Hierarchically Structured Materials for Energy and Sustainability Technologies
The nano- and microscale structure of extended composites and porous materials impact the mass and energy transport through them, dominating the materials performance in applications from energy storage and conversion to species separation. Fabrication processes to achieve tailored 3D nano/micro-architected hybrid materials with extended macroscopic dimensions, however, are often inadequate in terms of either precision or scalability. We develop bottom-up approaches that offer both through the study and application of soft-matter phase behavior and confined synthesis.
In this talk, I will first introduce our discovery of a novel thin-film deposition paradigm – the Electrodeposition of Polymer Networks (EPoN). The EPoN method enables conformal coatings of tunable sub-micron thickness on conductive substrates of arbitrary topographies. EPoN makes use of novel electrochemical crosslinkers at fractions as low as 1%, enabling the self-limiting and defect-free deposition of pre-synthesized polymers as stable coatings independent of their properties and functionalities. I will highlight the versatility of EPoN in the context of ultrathin solid electrolytes and selective sorbents, and I will outline how we envision electrodeposited reactive polymer thin films to enable autonomous polymer materials discovery in self-driving labs. In the second part, I will discuss our advances in the fabrication of monolithic anisotropic electrode architectures through Hybrid Inorganic Phase Inversion (HIPI) of soft and hard matter. Our architected electrodes possess channel-like pores traversing through the plane of the electrode, facilitating ion transport through the electrode depth. By exploiting the various dynamic processes of the non-equilibrium phase separation process, we establish criteria to tune the channel pore density and shape, as well as the nanoporosity and connectivity within its energy-storing matrix. By relating a set of these architected electrodes with dual-scale porosity to lithiation capacity at various current densities, we elucidate structure-performance relationships that can aid in the design of application-tailored energy storage solutions.
Bio: Joerg Werner received his Diplom (M.S.) in chemistry in 2011 from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, and his Ph.D. in 2016 from the Department of Chemistry at Cornell University under the guidance of Uli Wiesner. After his postdoc in the group of Dave Weitz at Harvard University, he started his independent research group at Boston University in 2020 as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Materials Science and Engineering. He received a DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2023 with a Director’s Fellowship in 2025, an Early Investigator Award in 2025 from the PMSE division of ACS, and was named an Emerging Investigator 2025 by the RSC Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
Werner is a core faculty of the Institute for Global Sustainability and co-founded BU’s Energy and Sustainability Technology Lab in 2023, a multi-PI supergroup that serves as a platform and community for students and faculty to exchange ideas and accelerate their research by open collaboration.