Dr. Shane Beattie - UNB Chemistry

Welcome to the homepage of Dr. Shane Beattie

Lab Manager/Research Associate

Shane Beattie Dr. Beattie works part time with the McGrady group. he helped set up the Hydrogen Research Laboratory (HRLab) in the Chemistry department at the University of New Brunswick. The HRLab is uniquely suited to the study, fabrication, characterization and testing of advanced hydrogen storage materials. Hydrogen storage materials could revolutionize the world of energy storage and portable power by providing clean, green, safe, efficient and inexpensive alternatives for energy storage.

Old News

The paper 'Si Electrodes for Li-Ion Batteries-A New Way to Look at an Old Problem', S. D. Beattie D. Larcher, M. Morcrette, B. Simon, J.-M. Tarascon, J. Electrochem. Soc. 155, A158 (2008) was featured in the 'Tech Highlights' section of the Summer 2008 Interface magazine published by the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.
Click here for suplimental information.

Bio

Dr. Beattie was awarded a Ph.D. in physics from Dalhousie University in 2004 (thesis). He worked with Dr. Jeff Dahn on Li-ion batteries. He pioneered a technique known as 'combinatorial electrodeposition' for the accelerated fabrication and testing of advanced negative electrode materials. After graduation Dr. Beattie was awarded an Industrial Research Fellowship (IRF) to work with Tekion Inc. as Lead Research Scientist. His work focused on the development of commercially viable technologies for energy conversion and energy storage applications (e.g. advanced battery, Li-air and formic acid fuel cell technology). He was responsible for managing all aspects of the lab including, but not limited to: equipment purchasing, equipment maintenance, software design, hardware design, project management, budget reports, monthly progress reports, annual reports to various funding agencies, and supervision of research associates. The research resulted in the development of a Li-air cell with the highest energy-density ever reported (Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Volume 156, Issue 1, pp. A44-A47 (2009)). These cells have energy-densities 10 times greater than any available today, and represent one of the the largest energy-densities of any practical energy storage systems.

In addition to R&D, Dr. Beattie was responsible for securing external funding. The lab was awarded ~ 300k$ under the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) in June 2005. He worked on other projects within the company as well, such as devloping an economical multichannel galvanostatic testing circuit (to be published soon), advanced catalyst development and product development of the companies flagship energy conversion technology: direct formic-acid fuel cells. Numerous patents and papers were submitted based on this work.

After Tekion Dr. Beattie took up a post-doctoral appointment at the Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimie des Solides in Amiens, France. Within 12 months a Si-based electrode with four-times the capacity of the industrial standard (carbon) was developed. Click here for suplimental information. Electode fabrication was designed to be inexpensive, and environmentally benign - a significant advantage compared to the toxic chemistry currently used in industry. The industrial research partner, SAFT batteries is continuing the study of the technology in hopes of commercialization.

After completing his post-doc Dr. Beattie accepted a position with Dr. Sean McGrady as Lab Manager for the Hydrogen Research Laboratory at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). The lab is working on hydrogen storage materials for the hydrogen economy. Only a few labs in the world are comparable in analytical, characterization and production capacity. It is a world-class institution for the study of advanced hydrogen storage materials.

Publications:

Thermal desorption of hydrogen from magnesium hydride (MgH₂): An in situ microscopy study by environmental SEM and TEM', Shane D. Beattie, Uncharat Setthanan, G. Sean McGrady, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, accepted Feb 4 2011, available online March 12, 2011.
Additional information can be found here.

'Thermal conductivity and specific heat measurements of metal hydrides', Shane D. Beattie, Adam Harris, Andre Levchenko, Joshua Rudolph, Christopher D. Willson, and G. Sean McGrady, to be included in the ITCC 2009 proceedings (30th International Thermal Conductivity Conference)
www.thermalconductivity.org

'Hydrogen desorption studies of NaAlH₄ and LiAlH₄ by in situ heating in an ESEM', Shane D. Beattie and G. Sean McGrady, accepted to the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Sept 2009
Click here to download/watch the ESEM insitu decomposition of LiAlH₄ movie
Or watch the Flash version here, or below (press F5 to refresh video).

The video run time has been accelerated by a factor of X8 for convenient viewing. Click here for more information.

'Economical multichannel galvanostatic testing circuit', Shane D. Beattie, Dorina Manolescu, Sharon Blair, Journal of Applied Science & Engineering Technology 2008, (jaset.rit.edu)

'In-situ thermal desorption of H₂ from LiNH₂ + 2LiH monitored by Environmental SEM' Shane Beattie, Henrietta Langmia and G. Sean McGrady, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Volume 34, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 376-379
Click here to download the ESEM insitu decomposition of LiNH₂+2LiH movie (13 MB .wmv format) or here for the lower quality mp4 format (xvid mp4). The movie is sped up by a factor of 16X for convenient viewing. The temperature of the sample is indicated on the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Or watch the Flash version here.

Note that you need to download and install the xvid codec to play the mp4 movies. Or, download the free video player VLC with the codec already installed. The .wmv version is in Windows Media Video format.

The movie has been edited for convenient viewing. The full, unedited movie can be downloaded here (.wmv, 258 MB, 31 min). For those interested, additional unedited movies can be downloaded here (.wmv, 205 MB, 24 min), here (.wmv, 94 MB, 11 min), and here (.wmv, 122 MB, 16 min) (right click the links and choose 'Save link as' to save movies to your hard drive).
Additional information can be found here.

'Temporal and Spatial Imaging of Hydrogen Storage Materials: Watching Solvent and Hydrogen Desorb from Aluminium Hydride by Transmission Electron Microscopy', S. D. Beattie, T. Humphries, L. Weaver and G. Sean McGrady, Chem. Commun., 2008, 4448–4450
Click here to download/watch the TEM insitu decomposition of alpha-alane movie (1 MB mp4v). Click here for suplimental information. Or watch the Flash version here

'High-Capacity Lithium–Air Cathodes', S. D. Beattie, D. M. Manolescu, and S. L. Blair, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Volume 156, Issue 1, pp. A44-A47 (2009)

'Si Electrodes for Li-Ion Batteries-A New Way to Look at an Old Problem', S. D. Beattie D. Larcher, M. Morcrette, B. Simon, J.-M. Tarascon, J. Electrochem. Soc. 155, A158 (2008)
Click here for suplimental information.

The paper was featured in the Journal of the Electrochemistry Society monthly magazie 'Interface' Summer 2008 ‘Tech Highlights’ section.

'Recent findings and prospects in the field of pure metals as negative electrodes for Li-ion batteries', D. Larcher, S. D. Beattie, M. Morcrette, K. Edstroem, J.-C. Jumas,J.-M. Tarascon, J. Mat. Chem., 17, 3759 (2007)

'Towards a fundamental understanding of the improved electrochemical performance of silicon-carbon composites', J. Saint, M. Morcrette, D. Larcher, L. Laffont, S. D. Beattie, J.-P. Peres, D. Talaga, M. Couzi, J.-M. Tarascon, Adv. Func. Mat., 17, 1765 (2007)

'Masked Electrodeposition of a Composition-Spread Library of Sn-Zn Alloys onto a 64- Channel Combinatorial Cell Plate', S. D. Beattie and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 152, C549 (2005)

'Combinatorial Electrodeposition of Ternary Cu-Sn-Zn Alloys', S. D. Beattie and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 152, C542 (2005)

'Comparison of Electrodeposited Copper-Zinc Alloys Prepared Individually and Combinatorially', S. D. Beattie and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 150, C802 (2003)

'Morphology and Safety of Li[Ni_xCo_1-2xMn_x]O₂ series (0-1/2)', S. Jouanneau, D. D. MacNeil, Z. Lu, S. D. Beattie, G. Murphy, and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 150, A1299 (2003)

'Single Bath Electrodeposition of Copper-Tin Alloy Negative Electrodes for Lithium-ion Batteries', S. D. Beattie and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 150 (7), C457-C460 (2003)

'Anomalous, high-voltage irreversible capacity in tin electrodes for lithium batteries', S. D. Beattie and J. R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 150, A701 (2003)

'The Electrochemical Reaction of Lithium with Tin studied by in situ AFM', L.Y. Beaulieu, S.D. Beattie, T.D. Hatchard and J.R. Dahn, J. Electrochem. Soc. 150, A419 (2003)

Conferences:

Electrochemical Society (ECS), May 18-21 2008, Phoenix, Arizona

American Physical Society (APS), March 10-15 2008, New Orleans, Louisiana

Electrochemical Society (ECS), Oct 16-21 2005, Los Angeles, California

Electrochemical Society (ECS), Oct 3-8, 2004, Honolulu, Hawaii

Materials Research Society (MRS), Dec 1-5th, 2003

Electrochemical Society (ECS), Oct 12-16, 2003, Orlando, Florida

Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), June 8-11, 2003, Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Canadian Materials Science Conference (CMSC), June 7-10, 2003, Halifax, N.S.

Electrochemical Society (ECS), Oct 20-25, 2002, Salt Lake City, Utah

Gordon Research Conference on Electrodeposition, Aug 11-16, 2002

11th International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB), June 23-28, 2002, Monterey, California

Electrochemical Society (ECS), Sept. 2-7, 2001, San Francisco, CA

Gordon Research Conference on Electrodeposition, Aug 13-18, 2000

Personal Information

Birth date: January 2nd, 1976
Birth place: Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada
Nationality: Canadian
Languages: English, basic French
Current Position: Lab manager/Research Associate

Previous Positions:

Post Doctoral Fellow, Laboratoire de Réactivité et de Chimie des Solides, Université de Picardie Jules Verne

Lead Research Scientist, Tekion Inc., Burnaby, BC, Canada, 2004-2006

Education:

Ph.D. Physics, Dalhousie University, 1999-2004

B.Sc. Honors in Physics, St. Marys University, 1994-1999

B.A. Major in Philosophy, St. Marys University, 1994-1999

Awards/Grants:

Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), June 2005, Tekion Inc.

NSERC-IRF, February 2004, Tekion Inc.

William Leiper Scholarship, 2002-2003 for “Innovative research techniques”, Physics and Atmospheric Science Department, Dalhousie

Numerous undergraduate bursaries, St. Marys University, 1994-1999

NSERC summer research grant, St. Marys University, 1996

Programming Languages:

For more information contact:

Shane Beattie, PhD
E-mail: sbeattie-at-unb.ca
Lab Manager/Research Associate
Department of Chemistry
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3B 6E2
Phone: 506-453-5131
Fax: 506-453-4981