April 8-9, 2026
This workshop is organized by the Zinc Battery Initiative (a program of International Zinc Association), the Statler College of Engineering & Mineral Resources at West Virginia University, and the Grid Storage Launchpad at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Attendance is by invitation only to facilitate in-depth discussions that foster a better understanding of the zinc battery supply chain, its opportunities, and its challenges.
This workshop will provide a platform for stakeholders across the zinc battery value chain to engage in discussions regarding supply chain challenges. The workshop will also seek to pinpoint data and resource deficiencies within the supply chain. Additionally, it will facilitate dialogue between industry leaders, national laboratories, end users and federal government officials, to explore collaborative strategies to bolster supply chain security amidst technological development and deployment efforts.
Location: AERB 120
Agenda
Day 1 – April 8, 2026, 8:45AM start
- Welcome & Opening Remarks from organizers.
- Keynote talk by Eric Hsieh, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Storage
- DOE talk on program overview, Changwon Suh, AMMTO
- Upstream session (mining, processing)
- Battery raw material session
- Battery producers/developers
- Lunch Break & Networking
- Recycling session
- Panel on Case Studies w/ Zinc batteries
- Panel on how to bolster US manufacturing
- Panel on target applications - Datacenters & Utilities
- IZA sponsored dinner
Day 2 – April 9, 2026, 8:45AM start
- Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Zinc Market Overview
- Zn Battery Technology Overview
- Application needs going forward
- Present finding from industry leaders
- Pathway forward discussion
- Closing remarks
- Lunch Break & Networking
Organizers
Prof. Dr. Xingbo Liu, FASM, FACerS
Associate Dean for Research, Statler Endowed Chair of Engineering
Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
West Virginia University
Dr. Liu began his professional career at WVU as a Postdoctoral Researcher in 2000 and joined the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as a faculty member in 2002. He became a full Professor in August 2014 and was appointed as Statler Endowed Chair of Engineering in 2018. Liu also served as the Associate Chair for Research within the Department from 2012 to 2019.
He has received several honors from the scientific community and the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at WVU. Among these include: the R&D 100 Award (2011), Innovator of the Year from TechConnect WV (2013), TMS Brimacombe Medalist (2016) from the Mineral, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award (2010) from TMS, WVU Statler College Outstanding Researcher (2007-2009, 2011, 2015), and WVU Statler College Researcher of the Year (2011, 2015). He is a Fellow of both ASM International and American Ceramics Society.
Dr. Vincent Sprenkle
Sr. Technical Advisor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – PNNL
Dr. Vincent Sprenkle is the Director of Grid Storage Launchpad at PNNL. Additionally, he serves as Co-Director of DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge Laboratory Coordinating Team and Director of the Rapid Operational Validation Initiative. He is supporting the US Department of Energy – Office of Electricity R&D activities focused on the development of novel, low-cost electrochemical energy storage technologies, improved safety, and reliability of grid scale storage, and understanding the value and use of grid scale storage. From 2014-2018, he served as Technical Group Manager for the Electrochemical Materials and Systems Group at PNNL. Dr. Sprenkle has been active in electrochemical technologies for 25 years and currently holds 32 US patents on fuel cells, batteries, and high temperature electrochemical devices with 17 pending patent applications. He was named PNNL Inventor of the Year in 2014 and Distinguished Inventor of Battelle in 2017. He has been recognized as key contributor on 4 licensing activities while at PNNL, received a 2009 FLC award for Technology Transfer of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology to Delphi Corporation, and was awarded the 2017 Green Chemistry Challenge Award from US. EPA with UniEnergy Technologies.
Dr. Josef Daniel-Ivad
Manager, Zinc Battery Initiative
International Zinc Association
Josef is currently managing the Zinc Battery Initiative for the International Zinc Association. He has over 30 years of zinc battery technology and development experience, in both primary and rechargeable batteries, where he brought concepts from the R&D bench to fully automated commercial production scale, implementing the ‘lab to fab’ concept. He held executive leadership positions with various household battery companies and is now running his own consultancy company in batteries and energy storage.
Dr. Daniel-Ivad holds a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry and a M.Sc. in Technical Chemistry from the Technical University of Graz, Austria.
Martin van Leuuwen
Director, Technology & Market Development
International Zinc Association
Martin van Leeuwen is an experienced metal professional with 25 years of experience in zinc, aluminum and steel. Since 2020 he serves as Director, Technology and Market Development at International Zinc Association (IZA). He is responsible for market development of zinc products and applications in zinc coatings, zinc castings, zinc sheet, zinc batteries and zinc chemicals, and manages IZAs regional programs in China, India, Russia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.Prior to IZA, he worked in various roles as sales manager, market development manager and technical customer support for aluminium foundry alloys at Alcoa and for zinc die casting and galvanizing alloys at Nyrstar. Before that he worked in various process technology, engineering and R&D roles at Nyrstar, Gemco Engineers and Tatasteel Europe.
He holds a master’s degree (MSc.) in Chemical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology from which he graduated in 1997.