Thomas Goodwin

Thomas Goodwin is a graduate student in chemical engineering designing thin-film composite membranes for nonaqueous redox flow batteries to enable large-scale renewable energy storage. Existing membranes underperform because they are not optimized for the high resistance and swelling characteristics of nonaqueous solvents, limiting power density. He synthesizes polyamide thin-film composites by interfacial polymerization and characterizes performance through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, permeability analysis, and battery cycling. Thomas uses MATLAB to solve a complex linear system of equations, determining cross-linking degree from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy data, employing the rank and conditioning functions to ensure numerical stability. MATLAB’s Simscape Battery Toolbox enables him to standardize equivalent circuit modeling for deconvoluting overlapping phenomena in impedance measurements. As a MathWorks Fellow, Thomas will apply the Optimization Toolbox to fit nonlinear models integrating theory with experimental data. His work could enable design relationships for membrane resistance, supporting the development of high-power-density energy storage systems.