UK independent institute for electrochemical energy storage The Faraday Institution is funding 16 “small, fast-paced, focused” projects to drive studies in areas not covered within its existing battery research portfolio.
The new seed projects— covering anodes, electrolytes, cathodes, next generation technologies, applications and data management, and flow batteries— aim to deliver results that may lead to a second stage of collaborative research.
The projects will run for a maximum of 12 months and represent a £2 million ($2.5 million) investment in research by the Faraday Institution.
In widening its research scope, and set of university partners, it is hoped the initiative will inform future priorities for Faraday’s research programme beyond March 2023.
With the initiation of these projects, the universities Durham, York, Loughborough and Queen Mary University London join the Faraday Institution community, bringing its total membership to 27.
The 14 universities involved with this round of seed projects are: Durham, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Nottingham, Imperial, Leicester, Loughborough, Oxford, QMUL, Sheffield, Strathclyde, Surrey, UCL, and York.
Professor Pam Thomas, CEO Faraday Institution, said: “These novel projects are in areas of application-inspired research that continue to strengthen the UK’s position in electrochemical energy storage and ultimately contribute to making UK industry more competitive.”
The funding round was oversubscribed by four times.
The two projects on flow batteries totalling £277,000 ($348,000) are being funded with UK aid from the UK government, via the Transforming Energy Access (TEA) programme.
TEA is a research and innovation platform supporting the technologies, business models and skills needed to enable an inclusive clean energy transition.
Descriptions of the projects can be accessed on the Faraday Institution website.
The projects are
Anodes
| Project | Principal Investigator | University |
| Scalable and sustainable manufacture of Si anodes for transforming commercial batteries | Professor Siddharth Patwardhan | University of Sheffield |
| Operando PDF-CT for advanced batteries | Dr Alexander Rettie | University College London |
| Microwave assisted processing for interface tailoring of Si-C anodes (MAP IT) | Professor Bala Vaidhyanathan | Loughborough University |
| Silicon Evolve | Professor Paul Shearing | University College London |
Electrolytes
| Project | Principal Investigator | University | ||
| Exploring new electrolytes for next-generation Li-ion batteries | Dr Wesley Dose | University of Leicester | ||
| Phase-independent electrolytes for improved battery safety and recycling | Associate Professor Paul McGonigal | Durham University with the University of York | ||
Cathodes
| Project | Principal Investigator | University | |
| Manufacturing of advanced electrodes with green solvents – MAEGS | Professors James Clark and Emma Kendrick | University of York and University of Birmingham | |
| Scale-up manufacturing of next generation ultra-high power Li-ion cathodes | Professor Jawwad Darr | University College London | |
Next-generation technologies
| Project | Principal Investigator | University | |
| Targeted design and testing of novel magnesium battery electrolytes for safe, high energy density storage | Dr Stuart Robertson | University of Strathclyde with the University of Sheffield | |
| Demonstration of the lithium-air gas diffusion electrode and system scoping | Associate Professor Lee Johnson | University of Nottingham with University of Oxford | |
| Rational design and manufacture of stacked Li–CO2 pouch cells | Assistant Professor Yunlong Zhao | University of Surrey | |
Applications and data management
|
Project |
Principal Investigator | University | |
| Battery multiphasE modelling for improving SAFEty (BESAFE) | Dr Huizhi Wang | Imperial College London | |
| Hybrid electrochemical energy storage | Professor Emma Kendrick | University of Birmingham | |
| Supercomputing capable battery data hub for scale and accelerated analysis | Associate Professor Gonçalo dos Reis | University of Edinburgh with University of Oxford | |
Redox flow batteries
| Project | Principal Investigator | University | |
| Advanced manufacturing of 3D porous electrodes for redox flow batteries | Dr Ana Jorge Sobrido | Queen Mary University London with University College London | |
| Device engineering of Zn-based hybrid microflow batteries and by-product H2 collection for emerging economies | Professor Dan Brett | University College London | |
Battery research organisation
Launched four years ago, The Faraday Institution is the UK’s independent institute for electrochemical energy storage research, skills development, market analysis, and early-stage commercialisation.
The Faraday Institution has convened a research community of 500 researchers across 27 universities and more than 50 industry partners to work on game-changing energy storage technologies that will transform the UK energy landscape from transportation to grid.
The core Faraday Institution research programme encompasses 10 large, coordinated, multi-disciplinary research programmes on battery degradation, modelling, recycling, cathode materials, electrode manufacturing, solid-state, lithium-sulfur and sodium ion batteries, as well as a range of smaller projects: industry sprints, and industry and entrepreneurial fellowships.
The Faraday Institution is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation. Headquartered at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, the Faraday Institution is a registered charity with an independent board of trustees.
The EPSRC is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government.
