Gustavo M. Hobold Email & Phone Number

Woburn, Ma, Us

• Led design of experiments and electrolyte screening projects in multi-layer full and anode-free pouch cells through the full electrolyte development cycle: from ideation to materials sourcing, QC, formulation design, characterization, battery testing and mechanistic/post-mortem analysis.• Developed and characterized >50 new electrolyte formulations involving >15 new previously-untested molecules for lithium metal batteries that improved upon baseline’s in performance metrics such as cycle life, high voltage stability, fast charge resilience, Coulombic efficiency.• Developed computational tools for electrolyte screening, integrating database scraping, generative machine learning and relevant quantum chemistry calculations to produce databases of >1,000 electrolyte candidates.• Led the development and implementation of titration-based high throughput failure analysis of cycled lithium metal electrodes.• Managed and trained engineers/scientists in electrolyte design and electrochemical characterization.

Cambridge, Ma, Us

• Assessed the state-of-the-art and proposed new strategies to improve cycling efficiency of lithium metal batteries for >1,000 cycles through electrolyte engineering (Hobold et al., Nat. Energy, 2021).• Developed an operando technique capable of measuring gas release from side reactions during cycling of lithium metal batteries, using gas chromatography (Hobold et al., Chem. Mat., 2020; Best Poster Award ISE 2020).• Developed and applied titration techniques with unprecedented chemical resolution to measure capacity loss mechanisms in lithium metal batteries, using ICP-OES, NMR and GC (Hobold et al., ACS Energy Lett., 2022).• Developed and applied electrochemical methods (EIS, CV) for measuring rate of Li+ exchange in lithium metal batteries, discovering a fundamental relationship for improving cycling efficiency (Hobold et al., ChemRxiv, 2022).• Investigated degradation mechanisms of lithium-electrolyte interfaces and their effect on battery thermal runaway. • Wrote and reviewed journal papers, technical reports, grant applications and mentored students. • Led and participated in scientific collaborations with other leading national and international researchers.

Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Br

• Designed, built and instrumented a high pressure (>100 bar) experimental setup for a novel technology of thermal energy storage in supercritical CO2.• Participated in the design of a semi-automated high pressure (>100 bar), high temperature (>300 C) experimental rig for supercritical CO2 heat transfer and fluid flow characterization, for applications in concentrating solar collectors.• Participated in and oversaw the design of several other thermo-hydraulics experimental rigs, with special focus on data collection, instrumentation and automation.

Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Br

• Designed and built a flight- and microgravity-ready boiling heat transfer experimental platform and oversaw integration with onboard electronics; to be sent aboard the VSB-30 rocket for microgravity testing by the Brazilian Space Agency.• Developed computer vision/machine learning algorithms (PCA, SVM, CNNs, others) for prevention of catastrophic failure in extreme heat transfer systems (~1 MW/m2), laying ground for a new field of non-invasive boiling diagnostics.• Designed, built and instrumented an experimental platform for investigating boiling heat transfer up to the critical heat flux (1 MW/cm2); data collection and automation through LabVIEW, Arduino and Raspberry Pi.• Developed computational and analytical methods (CFD, Python, Matlab) to determine optimal operating pressures and temperatures for fluid flow and heat transfer involving supercritical fluids, for applications in Rankine solar cycles.• Wrote and reviewed technical reports, journal papers, grant applications and mentored students.

Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Br

• Performed thermal analysis (heat transfer & fluid flow) of supercritical CO2 for applications in concentrating solar power generation.• Developed a computational wrapper to access the thermodynamic library COOLPROP from ANSYS Fluent.• Developed a versatile Matlab CFD code to solve the Navier-Stokes and energy equations with fully variable properties.• Won a national prize awarded by the Brazilian Association of Mechanical Engineers and Embraer.• Published journal paper suggesting how to better evaluate and enhance heat transfer to supercritical fluids.

Arlington, Va, Us

My internship at Raytheon was a collaboration between the Brazilian government and Raytheon Missile Systems.• As part of a rotative leadership team, develop a hypothetical anti-terrorism system to be implemented in Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil• Final results were presented to representatives of the Brazilian Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Education, former US Military Generals and Raytheon employees.• Received professional training in Systems Engineering and Architecture with constant presentation of technical panels through the coursesSee press release below

St. Louis, Mo, Us

• Adapted and improved models of low and high temperature fuel cells, and used a Java-based multi-objective genetic algorithm (jMetal) to optimize their performance.• Developed a model to predict solar incidence over airfoils, and optimized their energy harvesting and aerodynamic performance.• Integrated ANSYS Fluent and genetic algorithms, employing different programming languages/software (Java, C++, batch, MATLAB, Excel)• Mentored a high school student in the modelling and optimization of batteries• Research resulted in the publication of two journal papers.

Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Br

• Developed a Matlab code to simulate solar collector performance in different climates/locations.• Worked extensively with TMY3 climate data.• Investigated the use of solar energy as a heat source to CO2 power cycles.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Mechanical Engineering, Energy Sciences, Computational Sciences

Master'S Degree, Mechanical Engineering, Thermal Sciences

Engineer'S Degree, Mechanical Engineering

Exchange Student, Mechanical Engineering