Electrolyte design and engineering for next-generation batteries

About the Project

Project Title: Electrolyte design and engineering for next-generation batteries

Project: Advances in the rechargeable batteries for storage of electrical energy have always been the driving force for the improvement of our society, from communications to transportation and electricity delivery. Electrolyte is a critical component and governs the electrochemical performance of rechargeable batteries. This project aims to either developing aqueous electrolytes for aqueous zinc and other low-cost aqueous batteries, organic electrolytes for lithium ion and lithium metal batteries, or solid-state electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries. As a PhD candidate, you will work on designing new electrolyte systems and synthesizing new chemicals as electrolyte components. You will be trained in electrolytes, battery cell assembly, materials characterization, electrochemical testing, and prototype demonstration via state-of-the-art characterization methods such as in-situ spectroscopy, microscopy, and diffraction techniques. The ultimate goal is to develop long-life, safe, high-energy-density batteries for EVs and grid-scale applications via electrolyte design and engineering.

Supervisor: This project will be supervised by Associate Professor Jianfeng Mao. A/Prof. Mao is an ARC Future Fellow and the Discipline/Program Lead in Materials Engineering at the School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Adelaide (UoA). His research centers on energy storage. He has filed 5 patents and published over 130 papers (70+ as the first or corresponding author) in the leading discipline journals, including J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem., Adv. Mater., Energy Environ. Sci., Nat. Commun., Sci. Adv., and so on. His publications have attracted more than 15,000 citations with a H-index of 59 (Google Scholar).

Facilities: The University of Adelaide has invested multi-millions in new energy storage and in-situ characterisation laboratories. These laboratories have state-of-the-art facilities for materials synthesis, electrochemical testing and analyses e.g. battery charge/discharge testers and electrochemical workstations, and in situ characterizations e.g. in situ Raman and in situ ART-IR. Other facilities are available in the public platform of the School i.e. Raman, FTIR, XRD, EPR, and TGA/TGA-MS. Additional cutting-edge characterization can be conducted in Centre for Advanced Microscopy & Microanalysis. These facilities include FESEM, HRTEM, HADDF-STEM, NMR and XPS.

Student requirements: We are looking for a highly motivated candidate with Master Degree in Chemistry, Materials Engineering, Chemical Engineering, or a related field from reputable universities. The candidate will preferably have a Master degree or work experience in batteries, electrochemistry, organic synthesis.