I develop materials for batteries, in particular sodium-ion batteries.
I lead a materials research group working on electrochemical energy storage, with a focus on sodium-ion batteries. We develop new materials for anodes, cathodes and separators, and work with Toyota Motor Europe on methods for recycling lithium-ion batteries.
The lithium-ion battery has changed everyday life for most of us, but it has clear weaknesses. Lithium is relatively scarce, performance often drops sharply in the cold, and because the cells cannot be fully discharged, they have to be shipped partly charged, which makes them a fire risk. Sodium-ion batteries solve some of these problems, since sodium is found practically everywhere and the cells can be fully discharged before transport. They also bring new problems of their own, above all lower energy density, and the electrode materials are nowhere near as well developed. That is where we work: we make materials designed for sodium rather than borrowed from lithium technology, and work out what actually limits them in a working cell.
I teach courses on atomic and molecular structure (5KE165, 5KE162), thermodynamics (5KE165), molecular orbital theory and group theory (5KE195), and computational chemistry with electronic structure methods (5KE176).