Welcoming Co-investigators of New Research Areas

As part of the research project reshaping announced 30th March 2023 and as part of its ongoing efforts to drive impact in energy storage research, the Faraday Institution issued an open call for short, costed proposals for new research topics with tightly defined scopes that complement its core research projects. The round was highly competitive with 62 proposals submitted.

Co-investigators being successfully awarded new work topics via the competitive process are:

Degradation project

• Additional coatings and cell manufacturing activities will support the project and the Faraday Institution as a whole by producing reproducible materials for collaborative research and aiding in scale-up of promising new cathode materials, led by Louis Piper, WMG, University of Warwick. This work-package aims to:
  • To manufacture reproducible and reliable industry-like single layer pouch cells to enable more in-depth degradation studies.
  • To optimise pouch cell testing and supply conditioned cells/electrodes for the degradation consortium to perform post-mortem or operando measurements for degradation studies.
• James Dawson of Newcastle University will use advanced computation chemistry methods with particular focus on relating cell lifetime and performance to the electrolyte composition.
• Existing Industry Fellow, Chun (Ann) Huang of Imperial College London, will characterise solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layers for zero-excess lithium metal batteries using a new operando correlative imaging characterisation technique.
• Dominic Wright of University of Cambridge, will synthesise novel electrolyte systems, (salts, solvents and additives) compatible with chemistries under investigation, for evaluation and improved understanding.

Multi-scale Modelling project

• Ferran Brosa Planella, University of Warwick, will model formation processes and its impact on battery longevity, with particular focus on modelling the formation of the SEI layer.
• Alastair Hales, University of Bristol, and a previous recipient of an Industry Fellowship, will lead a research area to automate the generation of reduced order models from data or existing models such as PyBaMM.

ReLiB

• Mohamed Mamlouk, Newcastle University, will join ReLiB and lead research into data driven decision making process for the recovery and recycling of lithium-ion batteries.

SafeBatt Project

• Francesco Restuccia, King’s College London, will further develop an approach to model cell failure and fires, the initiation of thermal runaway and how it propagates.

SOLBAT

• James Dawson, Newcastle University, will conduct first principle calculations of transport of lithium ions at grain boundaries to better understand how the process affects battery performance and degradation.
• Paul Quinn, Diamond Light Source, will lead an activity to image, e.g., crack and dendrite formation using computed tomography to provide input that will help optimise composition and processing in other research areas.

LiSTAR

• Qiong Cai, University of Surrey, will perform atomistic materials modelling of Li-S batteries to support the development of cathode materials and understanding of the anode/electrolyte interface.
• Mauro Pasta, University of Oxford and the new Principal Investigator of the SOLBAT project, will lead research seeking to develop an all-solid-state Li-S battery.
• Daniel Auger of Cranfield University will develop a battery management system for Li-S batteries.

These new research areas have been integrated into the structure of the relevant main project.

Posted on March 30, 2023