USC.edu

Sri Narayan

Professor of Chemistry
Email sri.narayan@usc.edu Office LHI 305 Office Phone (213) 740-5965

Research & Practice Areas

Electrochemistry,
Energy Materials,
Energy Storage Technologies,
Fuel Cells,
Batteries,
Electrocatalysis

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Collaborative Researcher
  • National Energy Technology Laboratory /DoE, Collaborative Researcher
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Co-Investigator
  • US Army Research Lab, Collaborator

Biography

 

Prof. Narayan is currently Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California.  Prior to joining the University faculty, he was at the NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory for almost 20 years.  After receiving his Masters from IIT, Madras and  Ph.D., from the Indian Institute of Science, Dr. Narayan was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter, UK.  Later he was awarded the Resident Research Associateship of the National Research Council to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

During his 20 years at NASA’s JPL, he led the fuel cell research activities for over 15 years and also headed the Electrochemical Technologies Group for 7 years. He has worked successfully with various government and private funding agencies to make advances in both fundamental and applied aspects of electrochemical power sources. While at JPL, Dr. Narayan and his associates pioneered the development of direct methanol fuel cell power sources for military and commercial applications, developed new approaches to catalyst preparation by the sputter-deposition technique, new membranes and stacks, and demonstrated a range of hybrid power source systems for space and defense application. He received NASA-JPL’s Exceptional Achievement Award for the development of direct methanol fuel cell and transferring the technology to industry.

At the University of Southern California, Prof. Narayan leads research in the area of Energy Storage, tackling the challenges of inexpensive and robust batteries for large-scale energy storage needed for integration of solar- and wind- based electricity generation.  His research focuses on aqueous batteries based on rechargeable iron electrodes and redox flow batteries based on iron and small organic molecules.  In addition, Prof. Narayan has also developed unique approaches to addressing the challenges with lithium-sulfur batteries and electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to fuels.

Dr. Narayan has over 80 journal publications and over 50 U.S. Patents on various aspects of electrochemical technology. He has delivered invited talks on numerous occasions and has organized several conferences under the auspices of the Electrochemical Society. From 2009-2011 he was the Chairman of the Energy Technology Division of the Electrochemical Society of USA.  He was elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 2012.  In 2015, he was awarded the Phi Kappa Phi faculty recognition award by the University of Southern California. His efforts to commercialize battery technologies was recognized in two awards in 2017 and 2018 by the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation.  

 

Education

  • Ph.D. Electrochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, 12/1988
  • M.S. Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 7/1981
    • Resident Research Associate, NASA- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, 1992-1993
    • Resident Research Associate, NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, 1990-1991
    • Post Doctoral Fellow, University of Exeter, England, 01/03/1989-01/01/1990

  • Research, Teaching, Practice, and Clinical Appointments

    • Professor (Research), University of Southern California, 2010-05-2016-12

    PostDoctoral Appointments

    • Resident Research Associate of National Research Council, NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory , 01/08/1990 – 06/01/1992
    • Research Fellow, University of Exeter, Dept. of Chemistry, 03/01/1989 – 01/07/1990

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Prof. Narayan’s research focuses on the fundamental and applied aspects of electrochemical energy conversion and storage to reduce the carbon footprint of energy use and by providing energy alternatives to fossil fuel. To this end, group focuses on three major topics:

    1. Large-scale energy storage in batteries to enable renewable energy generation
    2. Developing advanced materials and systems to enable commercialization of high-energy density fuel cell and battery technologies
    3. Converting carbon dioxide and sunlight to liquid fuel by electrochemical routes

    Research Keywords

    Batteries, Fuel Cells, Energy Storage, Electrochemistry, Energy Conversion

  • Contracts and Grants Awarded

    • Thin Film Deposition System, (Army Research Office), Sri Narayan $150,000, 2012-2014
    • An Inexpensive and Robust Iron-Air Battery for Grid-Scale Energy Storage, (DoE- ARPA-E), Sri R Narayan $1,824,153, 2010-2014
    • Redox Flow Batteries based on Iron couples, (US Army), Sri Narayan $190,000, 2011-2013
    • Anhydrous Membrane for Electrochemical Compressor, (Creare Inc., MDA-SBIR), Sri R Narayan $35,000, 2009-2011

  • Conference Presentations

    • “Novel Catalysts for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells” , American Chemical Society Lecture/Seminar, American Chemical Society, Invited, Anaheim, CA, 09/2010 –
    • “Lithium-Sulfur Battery with a Robust Sulfur Electrode and Mixed Conduction Membrane” , 48the Power Sources ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Invited, Denver, CO, 06/11/2018 – 06/12/2018
    • “Optimizing the Efficiency of the All Iron Redox Flow Cell” , 48the Power Sources ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Invited, Denver, CO, 06/11/2018 – 06/12/2018
    • “Understanding and Mitigating Capacity Fade in Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Batteries” , 233rd Electrochemical Society MeetingTalk/Oral Presentation, Seattle, WA, 05/13/2018 – 05/17/2018
    • “Bioelectrocatalytic carbon dioxide reduction into Formate using Metal Independent Formate Dehydrogenase from Candida Boidinii” , 232nd Electrochemical Society meeting Talk/Oral Presentation, National Harbor, MD, 10/04/2017 – 10/05/2017
    • “Optimizing the design of Redox Flow Battery Using Impedance Measurements” , 232nd Electrochemical Society meetingTalk/Oral Presentation, National Harbor, MD, 10/01/2017 – 10/05/2017
    • “Improvements to the Efficiency of the All Iron Redox Flow Cell” , 231st Meeting of the Electrochemical Society Talk/Oral Presentation, New Orleans, LA, 05/30/2017 – 05/31/2017
    • “Effect of Additives on the Performance of the Iron Electrode” , Electrochemical Society 2012 Fall MeetingTalk/Oral Presentation, 2012-2013
    • “Electrochemical Energy Storage ” , Winston Chung Energy Center Inaugural SymposiumLecture/Seminar, Invited, University of Riverside, Riverside, CA, 2012-2013
    • “Fundamentals of Electrochemical Energy Storage ” , AIChE ConferenceLecture/Seminar, AIChE, Invited, Pittsburgh, PA, 2012-2013
    • “Materials Challenges for Large Scale Energy Storage ” , Invited lecture at Univeristy of MarylandLecture/Seminar, Energy Center, UMD, Invited, University of Maryland, College Park, 2012-2013
    • “Overview of Metal-Air Batteries” , 2102 Electrochemical Society Spring MeetingLecture/Seminar, Electrochemical Society, Invited, Boston, MA, 2012-2013
    • “Oxygen Evolution on Lanthanum Cobalt Manganese Perovskite” , Electrochemical Society 2012 Fall MeetingTalk/Oral Presentation, 2012-2013
    • “Oxygen Reduction on Lanthanum Cobalt Manganese Perovskite ” , Electrochemical Society 2012 Fall MeetingTalk/Oral Presentation, Honolulu, HI, 2012-2013
    • “Understanding Formation of Iron Electrode” , Electrochemical Society 2012 Fall Meeting Talk/Oral Presentation, Honolulu, HI, 2012-2013
    • “Bifunctional Catalysts for Alkaline Batteries” , Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, ARPA-E, Boston MA, 2011-2012
    • “Carbonyl Iron Electrodes for Iron-Air Batteries” , Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, ARPA-E, Boston MA, 2011-2012
    • “Effect of Chain Length of the Adsorption of Thiol Additives” , Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, ARPA-E, Boston MA, 2011-2012
    • “Effect of Organic Additives on Efficiency of Iron Electrode” , Gordon Research Conference on Energy StorageTalk/Oral Presentation, Invited, Ventura, CA, 2011-2012
    • “Organosulfur Additives to Suppress Hydrogen Evolution ” , Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, ARPA-E, Boston MA, 2011-2012
    • “Dual Feed High Pressure Water Electrolyzer ” , 218th Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Electrochemical Society of America , Las Vegas, CA, 2010-2011
    • “Meeting the Challenges of Sustainable Energy through Electrochemical Energy Technology” Lecture/Seminar, Dept. of Solid State and Structural Chemistry , Invited, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore , 2010-2011
    • “Platinum Alloy Catalysts by High Energy Ball Milling ” , 218th Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Electrochemical Society of America, Las Vegas , CA, 2010-2011
    • “Ternary Alloys of Pt-Co-Zr for Oxygen Reduction Reaction ” , 218th Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Electrochemical Society of America, Las Vegas , CA, 2010-2011
    • “Materials Challenges for Iron-Air Batteries” , European Materials Society-Bilateral Energy ConferenceLecture/Seminar, EMRS, Invited, Nice, France, 06/2011
    • “Anhydrous Proton Conductors based on P2VP Phosphate” , Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, MDA, Montreal, Canada, 05/2011
    • “Fuel Cell Technology for DoD Applications ” , Navy Workshop on Needs for High Energy Power Sources Roundtable/Panel, US Navy , Invited, Bloomington, Indiana, Spring 2010
    • “High Efficiency Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Formic Acid in Alkaline Membrane Cell” , 217th Electrochemical Society ConferenceTalk/Oral Presentation, Electrochemical Society of America, Vancouver, Canada, Spring 2010

    Other Presentations

    • “Challenges for Large Scale Energy Storage”, Invited Seminar -Maryland Energy Center, College Park, MD, 2011-CONT
    • “Iron -Air Battery for Grid-Scale Energy Storage”, ARPA-E Summit, Washington DC, 2010-CONT
    • “Advanced Batteries”, Chevron Summer Camp, USC, 2011-2012
    • “Iron-Air Battery for Large-Scale Energy Storage”, Energy Summit, San Diego, CA, 2011-2012
    • “Materials Challenges for Large Scale Energy Storage”, Distinguished Lecture Series -Viterbi School, USC Chem Engg, 2011-2012
    • “Electrochemical Technology for Sustainable Energy Solutions”, Visit by Trade Delegation from Gujurat India at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, 2010-2011
    • Development of Anhydrous Membrane for Electrochemical Compressors, Catalysts for Direct methanol fuel cells, Iron-Air Battery Development.
    • US Patent , 8,202,663 Solid Acid Electrolytes for Electrochemical Devices, 2011-2012
    • US Patent, 8,183,174 Iridium-doped ruthenium oxide catalyst for oxygen evolution , 2011-2012
    • Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in recognition of individual contributions to the field of Electrochemistry, 2012-2013

  • Office Hours

      Jan 2011 to June 2011 : 40, Students can walk into my office to get course support on the 599 class -Materials and Processes in Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage

  • Media, Alumni, and Community Relations

    • Chevron Summer Camp Lecturer, Spring Fall

  • Conferences Organized

    • Co-Organizer , Joint General Session of Battery and Energy Technology Division”, Spring Fall
    • Organizer, Large-Scale Energy Storage Symposium”, Spring Fall
    • Organizer, Joint General Session of Battery and Energy Technology “,
    • Organizer, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells 10″,

    Editorships and Editorial Boards

    • Editor, Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells X”, 2010-2011