The focus of this symposium is to explore the design and characterization of sustainable battery systems, beyond classical Li-ion batteries, that can aid the energy transition by supporting wider adoption of batteries in both mobile and grid energy storage applications. This symposium will focus on battery technologies based on abundant materials, including multivalent, organic, metal-air and aqueous batteries. This symposium aims to bring together experts from all around the world to exchange on the novel approaches towards a sustainable energy future. This symposium will be a unique opportunity for researchers, engineers, and energy experts to exchange knowledge and experiences on the latest sustainable battery technologies and establish connections for future collaborations and projects.
- Sodium and potassium batteries
- Multivalent (including Mg-, Ca-, Zn- and Al-based) batteries
- Polymer/organic batteries
- Aqueous and metal-air batteries
- Electrolytes and interphases/interfaces for post-lithium energy storage
Ivana Hasa is Assistant Professor of Electrochemical Materials in WMG at the University of Warwick. Her research activities are directed toward the understanding of the processes governing the chemistry of the next generation sustainable battery technologies. Design of technically relevant materials and the understanding of their structure-property correlation and electrochemical behavior are the core of her research interest. Her work is inherently interdisciplinary, tackling challenges at the interface of chemistry, materials science, electrochemistry, and the scale up of new battery chemistries to full proven cell prototypes. Dr Hasa is involved in several national and EU-funded projects and serves as technical advisor for the “New and Emerging battery technologies” working group of Batteries Europe. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory board for Batteries & Supercaps, academic lead for the WMG Battery School for Faraday Institution and a member of the Training & Diversity panel of the faraday Institution.
Dr. Nagore Ortiz-Vitoriano (https://cicenergigune.com/en/nagore-ortiz-vitoriano) is an Ikerbasque Research Associate, who has been spearheading metal-air research at CIC energiGUNE (Spain) since 2016, of which she became research line manager in 2018.
She obtained her doctorate in 2011 for her work on solid oxide fuel cells (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain), during the course of which she undertook research stays at Risø DTU (Denmark) and Imperial College London (UK). In 2013 she was awarded a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship from the European Union, enabling her to join the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge (USA) where she worked with both lithium and sodium-air batteries. In 2015, she continued this fellowship at CIC energiGUNE, where she conducted research stays at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), Deakin University (Australia) and Chalmers University (Sweden). Recently, she has been promoted to Ikerbasque Research Associate and granted the Ramon y Cajal fellowship financed by the European Commission's European Social Fund through the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
Dr. Ortiz-Vitoriano has focused on both rational design of electrode and electrolyte materials for energy storage (e.g., solid oxide fuel cells, electrocatalysis, Na-ion and metal-air batteries), as well as fundamental research focused on elucidating key processes (by establishing relevant physiochemical models) in order to facilitate rapid future developments at both the material and system levels.
Manuel Souto Salom (Valencia, 1988) is an Oportunius Research Professor and Principal Investigator at CIQUS (University of Santiago de Compostela). He is also a Guest/Visiting Professor at the University of Aveiro. He holds a double degree in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the University of Valencia (Spain) and from the École de Chimie, Polymères et Matériaux (ECPM) de Strasbourg (France), respectively, doing a research internship at PLAPIQUI (Argentina). He also earned a Master’s degree in Molecular and Supramolecular Chemistry (2011) from the University of Strasbourg conducting his Master thesis at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, Lisbon). He obtained his PhD in Materials Science at Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) with Prof. Jaume Veciana in 2016 conducting two research stays at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and at the University of Antwerp. In 2017, he started to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Molecular Science (ICMol-UV) with a Juan de la Cierva fellowship. In 2019, he started his independent research career as an Assistant Professor at the Chemistry Department of the University of Aveiro and CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials. In 2022 he was promoted to Principal Researcher (tenure, Permanent Researcher/Assoc. Prof.) at the same institution. His research interests encompass molecular electronics, electroactive polymers and organic batteries. His main current research interest is the design and synthesis of new functional electroactive porous frameworks (e.g., COFs & MOFs) based on redox-active organic building blocks for energy storage applications. In 2021, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant with the project ELECTROCOFS, which aims to design new redox-active COF-based electrodes for rechargeable batteries. He received, among other distinctions, the NanoMatMol PhD award, the PhD Extraordinary award, and the European Award on Molecular Magnetism Doctoral Thesis. He is member of the RSEQ (GENAM) and SPQ chemical societies and Fellow of the Young Academy of Europe.
Docent Moyses Araujo received his PhD degree, in Condensed Matter Physics, from Uppsala University (UU). Thereafter, he has held a postdoc position at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm with a distinguished scholarship from the Swedish Research Council (VR). As a recognition of his work in Sweden, he has won three research awards, viz. Benzelius prize (from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala), Ångstrom Premium (UU), and Bjurzon’s Premium (the highest award for PhD thesis at UU). In 2011, he has moved for a postdoc in USA, at Yale University, with a prestigious scholarship from the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI). In 2012, he has returned to Sweden as researcher at UU and in 2014 he has started his independent research group in the same institution with support from VR through the Young Researcher Grant. In 2018 he has become Docent in Physics at Uppsala University. From September 2020, he has joint Karlstad University as universitetslektor/Associate Professor in condensed matter theory.
My main research interest is development of the novel post Li-ion battery systems with a specific focus on the application of organic materials as cathode materials in different multivalent metal anode batteries and development of new multivalent electrolytes.
Hamideh Darjazi (Ph.D., 2021) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Science and Technology at Politecnico di Torino. Her multidisciplinary research encompasses the synthesis of active materials and their chemical, morphological, and structural characterization, with a particular focus on crystallographic properties. She conducts electrochemical analyses to establish correlations between the characteristics of materials and electrodes with their performance in lithium-ion (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (NIBs).
Her research also centers on the development and electrochemical evaluation of advanced polymer-based electrolytes—including gels, solids, hybrids, and composites—as sustainable alternatives to conventional liquid carbonate electrolytes.
Magali GauthierClaudio Gerbaldi got his PhD in Material Science and Technology in 2006 at the Politecnico di Torino, where he is now Full Professor, Chair of Chemistry for Applied Technologies. He leads the Group for Applied Materials and Electrochemistry, developing innovative electrochemical energy storage/conversion systems and related materials, with strong collaboration with academia, industry, and EU. He is co-author of > 175 research articles in ISI journals (h-index 67). He is the President of GISEL, the Italian Group for Electrochemical Energy Storage. Among others, he received the International “Roberto Piontelli” Award by the President of Italian Republic for outstanding contributions in the field of electrochemistry for energy-related applications.
Lee Johnson received his first degree from Newcastle University, after which he completed a PhD and post-PhD Fellowship in physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the University of Nottingham. He then joined the research group of Prof Sir P.G. Bruce FRS at the University of Oxford, where he studied the elementary processes taking place within the lithium-O2 battery. In 2017, he was awarded a Nottingham Research Fellowship, University of Nottingham, followed by an EPSRC Fellowship in 2018, both to support study of next-generation batteries. In 2019 he was promoted to Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry. His current research interests focus on understanding interfacial reactions, degradation, and charge transfer, in electrochemical energy devices.
Haegyeom Kim is a Career Staff Scientist at the Materials Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). He received his PhD in 2015 from Seoul National University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the LBNL until early 2019. His research interest lies in the materials design for energy storage and conversion materials based on the fundamental understanding of the synthesis process-structure-property relationship. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and 6 patents until now. He was selected as a Clarivate’s ‘Highly Cited Researcher (HCR)’, and won several awards, including Berkeley Lab Director’s Exceptional Achievement: Early Scientific Career, 2023 ACS Materials Au Rising Star, Young Scientist Award from the International Society for Solid-State Ionics, ECS Battery Division Postdoctoral Associate Research Award.