Master of Music / School of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Reginald L. Pittman / This Master’s Report is an examination of four vocal song cycles for the baritone voice. Song cycles researched, interpreted, and performed include An die ferne Geliebte (1816) by Ludwig van Beethoven, Sei Romanze (1838) by Giuseppe Verdi, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (1932-1933) by Maurice Ravel, and Let Us Garlands Bring (1938-1942) by Gerald Finzi. In this report you will find information on the history of vocal song cycles, biographical information about composers and poets/lyricists, compositional analysis, historical breakdowns of the musical periods, musical and poetic interpretations, original texts and English translations, pedagogical and performance practice insights, and never before published transpositions of “Non t’accostare all’urna,” “More, Elisa, lo stanco poeta,” and “Nell’orror di note oscura” from Giuseppe Verdi’s Sei Romanze (1838). Songs in this report are: “Auf dem Hügel sitz ich spähend,” “Wo die Berge so blau,” “Leichte Segler in den Höhen,” “Diese Wolken in den Höhen,” “Es kehret der Maien, es blühet die Au,” and “Nimm sie hin den diese Lieder” from An die ferne Geliebte by Ludwig an Beethoven. “Non t’accostare all’urna,” “More, Elisa, lo stanco poeta,” “In solitaria stanza,” and “Nell’orror di note oscura” from Sei Romanze by Giuseppe Verdi. “Chanson romanesque,” “Chanson épique,” and “Chanson à boire” from Don Quichotte à Dulcinée by Maurice Ravel. “Come away, come away, death,” “Who is Silvia?,” “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,” “O Mistress Mine,” and “It was a lover and his lass” from Let Us Garlands Bring by Gerald Finzi. The graduate recital was presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Music degree in vocal performance on April 9th, 2017 in All Faiths Chapel on the campus of Kansas State University. The recital featured the talents of baritone Matthew D. Cyphert and pianist Mitchell S. Jerko.

This work focuses on sodium-ion batteries. It describes the basic principles of accumulators, focusing more on secondary cells, their electrodes, especially negative electrodes. The work is lightly based on the basics of lithium-ion batteries. The practical part of the work is the production of negative electrodes Na2Ti3O7, which are further measured at three different temperatures. These measurements are then evaluated.

The performance and lifetime of lithium-ion batteries are strongly influenced by their composition. One category of critical components are electrolyte additives, which are included primarily to stabilize electrode/electrolyte interfaces in the battery cells by forming passivation layers. The presented study aimed to identify and study such an additive that could form a hydrogen-evolution-suppressing solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) in lithium-ion batteries based on aqueous electrolytes. A promising molecular additive, ethyl 2,2-difluoroacetate (EDFA), was found to hold the qualities required for an SEI former and was herein further analyzed electrochemically. Analysis of the battery cells were performed with linear sweep voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry with varying scan rate and EDFA concentrations. Results show that both 1 and 10 w-% EDFA in the electrolyte produced hydrogen-evolution-suppressing SEI:s, although the higher concentration provided no apparent benefit. Lithium-ion full-cells based on LiMn2O4 vs. Li4Ti5O12 active materials displayed poor, though partly reversible, dis-/charge cycling despite the operation of the electrode far outside the electrochemical stability window of the electrolyte. Inclusion of reference electrodes in the lithium-ion cells proved to be immensely challenging with unpredictable drifts in their electrode potentials during operation. To summarize, HER-suppressing electrolyte additives are demonstrated to be a promising approach to stabilize high-voltage operation of aqueous lithium-ion cells although further studies are necessary before any practical application thereof can be realized. Electrochemical evaluation of the reaction mechanism and efficiency of the electrolyte additives relies however heavily on the use of reference electrodes and further development thereof is necessary.

No description available.

Zugl.: Berlin, Humboldt-Univ., Diss., 2005

<h4>A generalized physics-based modeling framework is presented to analyze: (a) the effects of temperature on identified degradation mechanisms, (b) interfacial debonding processes, including deterministic and stochastic mechanisms, and (c) establishing model performance benchmarks of electrochemical porous electrode theory models, as a necessary stepping stone to perform valid battery degradation analyses and designs. Specifically, the effects of temperature were incorporated into a physics-based, reduced-order model and extended for a LiCoO₂ -graphite 18650 cell. Three dimensionless driving forces were identified, controlling the temperature-dependent reversible charge capacity. The identified temperature-dependent irreversible mechanisms include homogeneous SEI, at moderate to high temperatures, and the chemomechanical degradation of the cathode at low temperatures. Also, debonding of a statistically representative electrochemically active particle from the surrounding binder-electrolyte matrix in a porous electrode was modeled analytically, for the first time. The proposed framework enables to determine the space of C-Rates and electrode particle radii that suppresses or enhances debonding and is graphically summarized into performance–microstructure maps where four debonding mechanisms were identified, and condensed into power-law relations with respect to the particle radius. Finally, in order to incorporate existing or emerging degradation models into porous electrode theory (PET) implementations, a set of benchmarks were proposed to establish a common basis to assess their physical reaches, limitations, and accuracy. Three open source models: dualfoil, MPET, and LIONSIMBA were compared, exhibiting significant qualitative differences, despite showing the same macroscopic voltage response, leading the user to different conclusions regarding the battery performance and possible degradation mechanisms of the analyzed system.</h4>