Rate My Professor Yijun Zhong

Dr Yijun Zhong serves as a Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Energy and Technologies (CAEMT) at the WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University. He completed his PhD in the same school from 2017 to 2021, following a Master of Science from the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Nanjing University, China, and a Bachelor's degree obtained in 2013. Zhong holds post-nominals PhD, MRACI, and CChem, reflecting his qualifications as a chartered chemist. His academic career at Curtin University progressed from PhD candidature to his current research fellowship position, where he contributes to advanced energy materials research and supervises higher degree by research students in areas such as rechargeable proton batteries.

Zhong's research specializes in high-efficient energy storage and conversion, encompassing proton batteries, hybrid zinc batteries, aqueous zinc-ion batteries, solid-state lithium batteries, and lithium-sulfur batteries. Key projects include his Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA)-funded work, "High-Voltage Proton Batteries Operating at Ultralow Temperature," awarded $455,310 in 2025 to develop batteries with superior energy density and stability at low temperatures, supporting Australia's mining and battery sectors. He received the 2024 Curtin Awards for Research Excellence in the Planet – Early Career category for outstanding contributions to planetary sustainability through energy research. With over 150 publications and more than 12,000 citations on Google Scholar, his influential works include "Design methodology of a promising category of metal phosphate electrodes for quasi-solid-state proton batteries" (2025, National Science Review), "Self-Recovery Chemistry and Cobalt-Catalyzed Electrochemical Deposition of Cathode for Boosting Performance of Aqueous Zinc-Ion Batteries" (2020, Angewandte Chemie International Edition), "A Function-Separated Design of Electrode for Realizing High-Performance Hybrid Zinc Battery" (2020), "Ionically and Electronically Conductive Phases in a Composite Anode for High-Rate and Stable Lithium Stripping and Plating for Solid-State Lithium Batteries" (2022, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces), and "Trapping Sulfur in Hierarchically Porous, Hollow Indented Carbon Spheres: A High-Performance Cathode for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries" (2016). His expertise in nanoparticle synthesis, nanomaterials, porous materials, electrochemical analysis, and X-ray diffraction has advanced electrocatalytic applications and battery technologies.