David G. Kwabi
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GROWING UP IN GHANA, young David Kwabi would bug his parents for microscopes and follow his dad around to tinker with his car—early signs of a budding engineer. Through frequent blackouts in his neighborhood and observation of those around him, David began to realize how much of a difference engineered systems could make in society.
Engineering, although important by itself, doesn’t exist in a silo, Kwabi said. The solutions we come up with to the problems we face are going to have social implications. “We should think about how the solutions will benefit the stakeholders involved without creating inequities,” Kwabi said.
His current work involves developing organic charge carriers for energy storage and materials and systems that can be used for carbon capture. Bridging the gap between lab-scale development and real-world application are what he sees as the challenges that need to be addressed.
“We’re investigating materials that perform well but will be inexpensive enough that we can really scale these solutions and deploy them to society at large,” Kwabi said. Organics, he added, are appealing because they’re earth abundant. Working with these materials is gratifying because it feels like there’s a shot at real change if they perform well, he said.
“During power outages, some folks had diesel generators and would have power, whereas we didn’t, for my entire childhood. So I had a sense that engineered systems and machines can really make life better.”
David G. Kwabi
Kwabi’s group is also researching ceramic membranes in flow batteries. Most flow batteries have polymer membranes, which tend to allow crossover of molecules. Ideally, you want to keep the charge carriers on either electrode separate to avoid capacity loss in these systems, Kwabi explained. Ceramics are completely dense materials, so there’s no problem of molecule crossover that you get with polymer membranes. “It’s an interesting problem that marries electrochemistry and material science with mechanical engineering,” he said.
Technical work aside, Kwabi shared that the most important thing for him is to see the development and growth of his students—because “they’re going to go on and lead, train, and inspire others, and that to me is more valuable than any single technical achievement.”
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