Research Interests

Dr. Wood's primary research interests lie in the application of ab initio and mesoscale simulation techniques and high-performance computing to materials for energy storage and conversion. He has led numerous projects in hydrogen storage and production, solid-state batteries, electrocatalysis, and corrosion science. He is currently the Associate Program Lead for Hydrogen & Computational Energy Materials at LLNL.

His research activities center on "beyond-ideal" materials modeling for enable more realistic simulations of device operating environments. Topics of interest include solid-liquid and solid-solid interfaces, electrochemical processes, cooperative dynamics, disordered and amorphous systems, and nonequilibrium behavior. He is also active in the development of computational approaches for multiscale kinetics of physiochemical and electrochemical processes, and in the formulation of descriptors that use physiochemical principles to rapidly predict materials performance and durability.

Dr. Wood is the Theory Lead for the Hydrogen Storage Materials Advanced Research Consortium (HyMARC), funded by the Fuel Cell Technologies Office within the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. HyMARC focuses on the foundational understanding of kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena underlying solid-state hydrogen storage.

He also serves as Deputy Director of the Laboratory for Energy Applications for the Future (LEAF).

Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, 2007

B.S., Physics, Stanford University, 2001

B.A., Slavic Studies, Stanford University, 2001

Google Scholar Profile

1. B.C. Wood, T.W. Heo, S. Kang, S. Li, and L.F. Wan, “Beyond idealized models of nanoscale metal hydrides for hydrogen storage,” Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 59, 5786 (2020).
2. J. Ye, P. Shea, A. Baumgaertel, S. Bonev, M. Biener, M. Bagge-Hansen, Y.M. Wang, J. Biener, and B.C. Wood, “Amorphization as a pathway to fast charging kinetics in atomic layer deposition-derived titania films for lithium ion batteries,” Chem. Mater. 30, 8871 (2018).
3. A. Schneemann, J.L. White, S. Kang, S. Jeong, L.F. Wan, E.S. Cho, T.W. Heo, D. Prendergast, J.J. Urban, B.C. Wood, M.D. Allendorf, and V. Stavila, “Nanostructured metal hydrides for hydrogen storage,” Chem. Rev. 118, 10775 (2018).
4. M.D. Allendorf, Z. Hulvey, T. Gennett, T. Autrey, J. Camp, H. Furukawa, M. Haranczyk, M. Head-Gordon, A. Karkamkar, D.-J. Liu, J.R. Long, K. Meihaus, I. Nayyar, R. Narazov, D. Siegel, V. Stavila, J.J. Urban, S. Veccham, and B.C. Wood, “An assessment of strategies for the development of solid-state adsorbents for vehicular hydrogen storage,” Energy Environ. Sci. 11, 2784 (2018).
5. M. Dmitrievska, P. Shea, K.E. Kweon, M. Bercx, J.B. Varley, W.S. Tang, A.V. Skripov, V. Stavila, T.J. Udovic, and B.C. Wood, “Carbon incorporation and anion dynamics as synergistic drivers of ultrafast diffusion in superionic LiCB₁₁H₁₂ and NaCB₁₁H₁₂,” Adv. Energy Mater. 8, 1703422 (2018).
6. T.A. Pham, X. Zhang, B.C. Wood, D. Prendergast, S. Ptasinska, and T. Ogitsu, “Integrating ab initio simulations and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy: Toward a realistic description of oxidized solid/liquid interfaces,” J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 9, 194 (2018).
7. K.E. Kweon, J.B. Varley, P. Shea, N. Adelstein, P. Mehta, T.W. Heo, T.J. Udovic, V. Stavila, and B.C. Wood, “Structural, chemical, and dynamical frustration: Origins of superionic conductivity in closo-borate solid electrolytes,” Chem. Mater. 29, 9142 (2017).
8. K.G. Ray, L.E. Klebanoff, J.R.I. Lee, V. Stavila, S. Kang, T.W. Heo, M. Bagge-Hansen, J. White, P. Shea, Y.-S. Liu, and B.C. Wood, “Elucidating the mechanisms of MgB₂ initial hydrogenation via a combined experiment-theory study,” Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 19, 22646 (2017).
9. Y. Liu, K.P. Hackenberg, J. Wu, J. Zhang, Y.M. Wang, Y. Yang, K. Keyshar, J. Gu, T. Ogitsu, R. Vajtai, J. Lou, P.M. Ajayan, B.C. Wood, and B.I. Yakobson, “Self-optimizing, highly surface-active layered metal dichalcogenide catalysts for hydrogen evolution,” Nature Energy 2, 17127 (2017).
10. J. Varley, K. Kweon, P. Mehta, P. Shea, T.W. Heo, T. Udovic, V. Stavila, and B.C. Wood, “Understanding ionic conductivity trends in polyborane solid electrolytes from ab initio molecular dynamics,” ACS Energy Lett. 2, 250 (2017).
11. B.C. Wood, V. Stavila, N. Poonyayant, T.W. Heo, K.G. Ray, L.E. Klebanoff, T.J. Udovic, J.R.I. Lee, N. Angboonpong, and P. Pakawatpanurut, “Nanointerface-driven reversible hydrogen storage in the nanoconfined Li-N-H system,” Adv. Mater. Interfaces 4, 1600803 (2017).
12. N. Adelstein and B.C. Wood, “Role of dynamically frustrated bond disorder in a Li⁺ superionic solid electrolyte,” Chem. Mater. 28, 7218 (2016).
13. T.W. Heo, M. Tang, L.-Q. Chen, and B.C. Wood, “Defects, entropy, and the stabilization of alternative phase boundaries in battery electrode particles,” Adv. Energy Mater., 1501759 (2016).
14. D.V. Esposito, J.B. Baxter, J. John, N.S. Lewis, T.P. Moffat, T. Ogitsu, G. O’Neil, T.A. Pham, A.A. Talin, J. Valazquez, and B.C. Wood, “Methods of photoelectrode characterization with high spatial and temporal resolution,” Energy Environ. Sci. 8, 2863 (2015).
15. M.D. Radin, T. Ogitsu, M. Otani, J. Biener, and B.C. Wood, “Capacitive charge storage at an electrified interface investigated via direct first-principles simulations,” Phys. Rev. B 91, 125415 (2015).
16. M. Bagge-Hansen, B.C. Wood, T. Ogitsu, T.M. Willey, I.C. Tran, A. Wittstock, M. Biener, M. Merrill, M.A. Worsley, M. Otani, C.-H. Chuang, D. Prendergast, J. Guo, T.F. Baumann, T. van Buuren, J. Biener, and J.R.I. Lee, “Potential-induced electronic structure changes in supercapacitor electrodes observed by in operando soft X-ray spectroscopy,” Adv. Mater. 27, 1512 (2015).
17. Y. Liu, Y.M. Wang, B.I. Yakobson, and B.C. Wood, “Assessing carbon-based anodes for lithium-ion batteries: A universal description of charge-transfer binding,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 028304 (2014).
18. B.C. Wood, T. Ogitsu, M. Otani, and J. Biener, “First principles-inspired design strategies for graphene-based supercapacitor electrodes,” J. Phys. Chem. C 118, 4 (2014).
19. B.C. Wood, E. Schwegler, W.I. Choi, and T. Ogitsu, “Hydrogen-bond dynamics of water at the interface with InP/GaP(001) and the implications for photoelectrochemistry,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 15774 (2013).
20. B.C. Wood, S. Bhide, D. Dutta, V.S. Kandagal, A.D. Pathak, S.N. Punnathanam, K.G. Ayappa, and S. Narasimhan, “Methane and carbon dioxide adsorption on edge-functionalized graphene: A comparative DFT study,” J. Chem. Phys. 137, 054702 (2012).

• LLNL Early & Mid Career Recognition Award, 2017
• National Science Foundation International Research Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2007-2008
• DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, 2003-2007