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Materials for nuclear fuels and system design;  Materials for solar energy conversion and storage;  Multifunctional materials for energy applications;  Materials for separations in energy applications;  Fuel cells technologies and materials; Thermoelectrics-based technologies and materials; Technologies for energy storage: Batteries; Technologies for energy storage: Hydrogen; Technologies for energy storage: Supercapacitors; Modeling, simulation and optimization of energy systems; Energy and sustainability

We have been conducting research on energy related areas over the past 20 years using state of the art computational methods ranging from quantum chemistry to molecular dynamics and methods based on phenomenological models. The main focus is to design materials and material structures to improve the energy conversion from abundant sources such as thermal, mechanical (e.g., wind), chemical and light to useable forms such as electricity. The guiding principle is to find chemistries, compositions and micro- and nano-structures that optimize the gain.  Furthermore, the Cagin group analyzes the processing pathways using non-equilibrium statistical thermodynamics through advanced molecular dynamics methods.