I will start by giving an overview of active research activities in my research group located at University of Maryland Energy Research Center, including wood materials toward sustainability, 3000K high temperature materials and processing, and beyond-Li ion batteries (solid state, Na-ion). 
Then I will focus on our recent development on garnet-based solid-state Li-metal batteries with a focus on the following three aspects:
(1) Interface engineering to improve the wetting between Li metal anode and Garnet solid state electrolyte (Nature Materials 2016; JACS 2016; Advanced Materials 2017; Science Advances 2017);
(2) Garnet based 3D Li ion conductive framework toward high energy density Li-S batteries (Submitted);
(3) Garnet nanofiber based flexible, hybrid electrolyte with a high Li ion conductivity (PNAS 2016).

Bio Liangbing Hu （胡良兵） received his B.S. in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2002, where he worked with Prof Yuheng Zhang on colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) materials for three years. He did his Ph.D. in at UCLA (with George Gruner), focusing on carbon nanotube based nanoelectronics (2002-2007). In 2006, he joined Unidym Inc (www.unidym.com) as a co-founding scientist. At Unidym, Liangbing’s role was the development of roll-to-roll printed carbon nanotube transparent electrodes and device integrations into touch screens, LCDs, flexible OLEDs and solar cells. He worked at Stanford University (with Yi Cui) from 2009-2011, where he work on various energy devices based on nanomaterials and nanostructures. Currently, he is an associate professor at University of Maryland College Park. His research interests include nanomaterials and nanostructures, roll-to-roll nanomanufacturing, energy storage focusing on solid-state batteries and Na ion batteries, and printed electronics. He has published over 200 research papers (Total citations: >15,000 times) and given more than 70 invited talks. He received many awards, including: the Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2017), Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2016), ACS Division of Energy and Fuel Emerging Investigator Award (2016), SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2016), University of Maryland Junior Faculty Award (School of Engineering, 2015), 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award (2015), Maryland Outstanding Young Engineer (2014), University of Maryland Invention of Year (2014 Physical Science), Campus Star of the American Society for Engineering Education (2014), Air Force Young Investigator Award (AFOSR YIP, 2013). For more info, please visit www.bingnano.umd.edu. Dr. Hu is the (founding) director of the Center for Advanced Paper and Textile (CAPT) at the University of Maryland College Park (www.capt.umd.edu). He is also the Co-founder of Inventwood Inc. (www.inventwood.com) with efforts to further commercialize the aforementioned cellulose nanotechnologies.