Quantification of fire safety for new battery materials (50:50 studentship – Faraday Institution and Net Zero Centre)

About the Project

Lithium-ion batteries have become the cornerstone of our energy storage systems. However, they present several critical safety challenges, primarily around the risk of fire. Thermal decomposition of battery components is one of the earliest events leading to thermal runaway, and the thermal stability of electrode and electrolyte materials serves as a critical indicator of the severity of this process.

For sodium-ion batteries, which are emerging as a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to lithium-ion technology, or other new type of batteries such as lithium-metal batteries, emerging due to their very high energy density, the understanding of thermal stability is particularly important for evaluating safety and guiding the design of robust chemistries.

In this PhD, we intend to apply experimental and computational methods to study the cell-level stability and propensity to fire risk of novel battery materials. The student will be able to not only study the behaviour of new batteries at the material level but also be able to scale up to cell level, and will allow the learning of new techniques in heat transfer, fire dynamics, and materials science.

This project is co-funded by The Faraday Institution as part of their 9th PhD cohort, commencing October 2026.