Ben Simon joins About:Energy - 24th June 2022

Ben has left the group to join About:Energy as Product and Project Manager to support the efforts on accelerating the development of new battery technologies through modelling.


Ben Simon passed his viva -  27th April 2022

Ben successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled ''Electrode, Electrocatalyst and Electrolyte Development for Hybrid Redox Flow Batteries'' supervised by Prof Nigel Brandon and Prof Anthony Kucernak (Chemistry Dept). His examiners were Dr Ifan Stephens (Imperial College London) and Prof Xiaohong Li (University of Exeter). Congratulations to Dr Simon!


ESE group welcomes a new member, Christopher Cannon - October 2021

Chris joins the Brandon group in the Earth Science and Engineering Department as a PhD candidate and will work in Organic-Hydrogen Redox Flow Batteries Chemistry supervised by Prof Nigel Brandon and Prof Anthony Kucernak (Chemistry Dept). Welcome!!!


Rid Chowdhury passed his viva -  14th September 2021

Rid successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled ''Study of Bi-layer Electrodes for Lithium-ion Batteries through Simulation and Experiment'' supervised by Prof Nigel Brandon and Dr Aayan Banerjee. His examiners were Dr Huizhi Wang (Imperial College London) , Prof Rohit Bhagat (Coventry University) . Congratulations to Dr Chowdhury!


Professor Magda Titirici on how food waste could be used to develop batteries - September 2021

Professor Magda Titirici is interviewed in the BBC Inside Science programme, which tries to illuminate the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world. Click here to join Professor Titirici in understanding how food waste may help with the development of a more sustainable generation of batteries.


About:Energy a new spin-out company that offers battery characterisation to industry - August 2021

About:Energy logo

About:Energy is a collaborative spin-out company from Imperial College and the University of Birmingham (UoB). The company is built on the experimental capability to accurately parameterise both physics-based and equivalent circuit models. This capability includes a patent registered through Imperial for measuring the thermal properties of cells which makes thermally coupled models significantly more accurate.

About:Energy founders

The company has been brought together by the Faraday Institute who saw an opportunity to combine commercial work in both Prof. Greg Offer’s group at Imperial and Prof. Emma Kendrick at UoB. The three founders come from these groups and are Dr Alastair Hales (Imperial Postdoc), Gavin White (Imperial PhD) and Kieran O’Regan (UoB PhD). Dr Yatish Patel (imperial) joins Greg and Emma as a director with Neil Morris acting as the company chairman.

To keep up-to-date check out:

www.aboutenergy.io

https://twitter.com/boutenergy (@boutenergy)

https://www.linkedin.com/company/about-energy/about/


Professor Magda Titirici on transferring biomass waste into energy storage - August 2021

Professor Magda Titirici is interviewed on Sky News Climate Live Show and shared our approaches to tackle the climate crisis by transferring biomass waste into energy storage and conversion materials. Check the interview here.


Professor Magda Titirici has been awarded Royal Society medal - August 2021

Professor Magda Titirici has been recognised with the Kavli Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society. The Kavli Medal and Lecture is awarded annually for excellence in all fields of science and engineering relevant to the environment. The medal is of bronze gilt and is accompanied by a gift of £1,000. Professor Magda Titirici, Chair in Sustainable Energy Materials in the Department of Chemical Engineering, was awarded the medal for her outstanding contributions to advancing the sustainability of energy storage and conversion technologies by performing interdisciplinary research at the interface between electrochemistry, materials science and chemical engineering. 

 

Link: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/228713/imperial-academic-awarded-royal-society-medal/


Professor Magda Titirici has been named as the Griffith Medal and Prize winner 2021 - June 2021

Professor Magda Titirici has been named by the IOM3 as the Griffith Medal and Prize winner 2021 in recognition of her distinguished work in the field of materials science. Professor Titirici’s award highlights her international recognition in the field of sustainable energy materials, based on her ground-breaking scientific discoveries in sustainable materials energy storage and conversion technologies. To date, she has 250 publications with over 25,000 citations, and she has been part of the Clarviate 1% top-cited global researchers over the past 4 years. The judging panel also noted her passion for educating younger sustainable materials scientists of the future and for outreach activities, including her involvement in the ‘I Can Be’ charity which inspires young girls from underprivileged backgrounds to pursue science and engineering. 

Link: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/223253/professor-magda-titirici-recognised-distinguished-materials/


Prof Nigel Brandon discusses the role of hydrogen in long-duration energy storage - June 2021

Prof Nigel Brandon talks about the role of hydrogen in the energy transition, along with Dr Tom Mason CEO Bramble Energy and Dr Mark Selby CTO of IP Group alumnus Ceres Power in the 3rd 20in21 webinar series of IP Group.

Link: Hydrogen: nuance and opportunity


ESE group welcomes a new member, Minnan Ye - May 2021

Minnan joins the Earth Science and Engineering Department as a PhD candidate and will work in System-Level Models for Redox Flow Batteries supervised by Catalina, Prof Nigel Brandon and Prof Anthony Kucernak (Chemistry Dept). Welcome!!!


Laura Lander discusses battery recycling and techno-economics - May 2021

Laura discusses battery recycling in the 2nd episode of the KTN Battery Caffe Podcast, along with Alberto F Minguela, Manager of Research & Innovation HSSMI, Sheena Hindocha, Knowledge Transfer Manager at Materials Chemistry KTN, and Nikoleta Piperidou, Knowledge Transfer Manager of Energy & Infrastructure and Lead Cross-Sector Battery Systems Innovation Network at KTN.

Link: https://ktn-uk.org/news/battery-caffe-podcast-episode-2/


Hande Alptekin passed her viva -  24th May 2021

Hande Alptekin successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis entitled ''Fundamental studies of the structure-performance correlations and interfaces in hard carbon anodes for Na-ion batteries'' supervised by Prof Magda Titirici. Her examiners were Dr Ainara Aguadero (Imperial College London) and Dr Phoebe Allan (University of Birmingham). Congratulations to Dr Alptekin!


Prof Titirici discusses critical materials for batteries, fuel cells and electric motors - May 2021

Prof Titirici had a discussion on critical materials for batteries, fuel cells and electric motors together with Prof Herrington from National History Museum, Dr Anderson from the Birmingham Energy Institute and Dr Petavratzi from British Geological Survey.

Link: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/c1e06ecf-bdab-4638-a740-b9be9a69010f


The Titirici Group at the Sustainable Materials #BritishScienceWeek​ - February 2021

The Titirici Group at the Department of Chemical Engineering welcomes you to their lab and provides an introduction to their research into sustainable materials. This video has been produced for #BritishScienceWeek.


Laura Bravo-Diaz is interviewed on the International Day of Women and Girls In Science - February 2021

Laura talks about her career path and research activities in the group, as well as her perspective on women in science (in Spanish). Link: https://www.radiostudio88.com/index.php/ultimas-noticias/item/5157-mujeres-investigadoras-de-torrelavega


ESE group welcomes a new member, Elizabeth Olisa - January 2021

Elizabeth joins the Mechanical Engineering Department as a PhD candidate and will work in Lithium-Sulfur Batteries supervised by Monica, Magda and Huizhi. Welcome!!!


Jacqueline and Laura will write a Faraday Insight on Multiscale Modelling - November 2020

Dr Jacqueline Edge and Dr Laura Lander have won funding to write a report for the Faraday Institution, working with the Institute for Molecular Science & Engineering (IMSE). The report will be titled ‘The value of multiscale modelling for designing next-generation batteries’ and will be one of the Faraday Insights, which will run from 15 January 2021 to 31 March 2021. Congratulations!


MSc student Luke Jamieson has been awarded the Unwin Postgraduate Prize 2020 - November 2020

Luke Jamieson, MSc student of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, supervised by Dr Tribeni Roy and Dr Huizhi Wang has been awarded the Departmental Prize - Unwin Postgraduate Prize 2020. Congratulations!


Yuri Merla has been awarded the Margaret Fishenden Centenary Memorial Prize - November 2020

Yuri, who graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2017, has been awarded the Margaret Fishenden Centenary Memorial Prize for his outstanding PhD work. His thesis: ‘Development of new on-board battery diagnosis/prognosis tools for extending lifetime and mitigating failure', was selected as the best PhD thesis in the department over the last 5 years. Congratulations!


A tutorial: Understanding the science & engineering of electric vehicle battery safety - November 2020

Jorge Varela-Barreras and Xuning Feng (Tsinghua University, Chine) gave a half-day tutorial on Understanding the Science & Engineering of Electric Vehicle Battery Safety as part of the IEEE Vehicular Power Propulsion Conference (VPPC) on November 26, 2020, Gijon, Spain.


Ganesh and Greg have been awarded a Faraday Institution Industry Fellowship - October 2020

Dr Ganesh Madabattula and Dr Gregory Offer have been awarded a Faraday Institution Industry Fellowship and will work with Ilika Technologies Inc. This fellowship supports the modelling efforts to optimize the design of large-format composite solid-state batteries of Ilika for EVs to produce at large scale. Congratulations! 


ESE group welcomes a new member, Yuwei Pan - October 2020

Yuwei joins the Earth Science and Engineering Department as a PhD candidate and will work in degradation models for PEM fuel cells supervised by Nigel and Huizhi. Welcome!!!


IEE_industry_Engagement_award

Our paper featured as a cover profile in Batteries & Supercaps - October 2020

Check the cover profile (Nov 2020) and comments on the recent review paper: Chitre A, Freake D, Lander L, Edge J, Titirici MM, 2020, Towards a More Sustainable Lithium‐Ion Battery Future: Recycling LIBs from Electric Vehicles, Batteries & Supercaps, Vol: 3, Pages: 1 – 12


UK & Ireland Section wins the IEEE Industrial Engagement Competition - September 2020

IEEE UK & Ireland Section, World Winner of the IEEE Industrial Engagement Competition, IEEE Section Congress 2020 (SC2020), September 1, 2020. Dr Jorge Varela Barreras serves as Joint Chair of IEEE UK & Ireland Education Society Chapter, and the local professional development activities of this chapter contributed to the award. Congratulations!


The Titirici group obtains a Bronze Award LEAF 2020 - September 2020

Leaf Bronze 2020

Our Chemical Engineering team, the Titirici group, obtains a Bronze Award LEAF 2020 for contributing to making Imperial more energy-efficient, sustainable and lower its CO2 emissions throughout greener lab practices. Congratulations!


Check out our new review on Fire Safety of Lithium-ion Batteries - August 2020

Laura, Monica, Jorge, Yatish and Greg published a new review on Fire Safety of Lithium-Ion Batteries: Industry Challenges and Research Contributions, in collaboration with the Hazelab group and Dr Restuccia from King's College London. Check the press release!


ESE group welcomes a new member, Dr Haijun Ruan - August 2020

Haijun joins the Dyson School of Design Engineering team and will work in Lithium-ion battery modelling. Welcome!!!


Simon Kellner passed his ESA -  6th August 2020

Simon's PhD project is titled ''Freestanding non-precious metal cathode catalyst layer architecture for oxygen reduction in fuel cells'' and is supervised by Prof Sandrine Heute, Prof Magda Titirici and Dr Ifan Stephens. His examiner was Prof Jason Riley from the Department of Materials. Congratulations!


Our webinars on battery research - ESE Summer Showcase July 2020 

A series of webinars highlighting some of the work we do on Lithium-ion batteries as part of our Summer Showcase 2020. Our current projects include thermal management, optimisation of fast charging, modelling and more.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCt1Z8HIpt9Z9TxKP6nBQzO0AVeaMx5b7


Silvia Favero passed her ESA -  15th July 2020

Silvia's PhD project is titled ''Engineering the electrochemical interface of oxygen reduction catalysts'' and is supervised by Prof Magda Titirici and Dr Ifan Stephens. Her examiner was Prof Anthony Kucernak from the Department of Chemistry. Congratulations!


Philipp Schlee passed his viva -  30th June 2020

Philipp successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled ''Kraft lignin-derived carbon nanofibres as electrodes in aqueous alkaline supercapacitors'' supervised by Prof Magda Titirici. His examiners were Dr Roberto Rinaldi (Imperial College London) and Prof Arne Thomas (TU Berlin). Congratulations to Dr Schlee!


Our new Nature Comment is live! - June 2020

Our Nature Comment on the importance of battery thermal management can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01813-8. We propose the Cell Cooling Coefficient as a metric to aid the design of the next generation of battery packs. Keep it cool!


Release of a new video showcasing some of our latest research - June 2020

We have produced a short animation summarising our recent work on the Cell Cooling Coefficient (a battery design tool) and how thermal management can be improved in the next generation of batteries. The cell cooling coefficient is a metric which can aid the design of the next generation of battery packs and highlight the importance of good thermal management across the battery industry. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIihRRq7LgU&feature=youtu.be


Ashkan Kavei passed his viva -  16th June 2020

Ashkan successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled ''Development and Characterisation of Advanced Energy Storage Devices for Stationary Applications'' supervised by Prof Nigel Brandon, Dr Billy Wu and Dr Vladimir Yufit. His examiners were Dr Richard Dawson from University of Lancaster and Prof. Klaus Hellgardt  from the Department of Chemical Engineering. Congratulations to Dr Kavei!


Most highly downloaded battery paper - May 2020

Dr Simon O'Kane recent publication "Physical Origin of the Differential Voltage Minimum Associated with Lithium Plating in Li-Ion Batteries" is in top three of the most highly downloaded battery papers in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Congratulations Simon!

Link: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1945-7111/ab90ac


Askan Kavei won the prize for best pitch at the International Flow Battery Forum (IFBF) 2019 in Lyon - Jul 2019

 Link: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6555081334262374400


Recruiting 1 Research Associate in Battery Materials Characterisation

Please find the full job descriptions here. Deadlines are March 12, 2018. The RA would be joining a team who are currently developing a novel isotopic technique for quantifying the solid-state diffusivity and liquid-solid interfacial exchange coefficients for a range of electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries.


Recruiting 5 Research Associates to work on the Faraday Multi-Scale Modelling of Lithium Ion Batteries

Please find the full job descriptions here. Deadlines are March 20, 2018. The projects are part of the recently announced >£10M Faraday Institution project on Multi-Scale Modelling of Lithium Ion Batteries. This is a collaboration between 22 academics across 7 Universities in the UK.


Recruiting 7 new positions in Battery Modelling, Battery Testing & Systems Engineering

Please find the full job descriptions here. Deadlines are January 21, 2018. These projects are to work with industry on six different Innovate UK projects.


Max Naylor-Marlow stars in BBC Click

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b096vm07/click-batteries-included  


Dr Monica Marinescu appointed lecturer in Mechanical Engineering - October 2017

Dr Monica Marinescu is appointed lecturer in the department of mechanical engineering at Imperial College London, and extends the group to 6 academic groups working together.


Nigel, Greg & Billy help found new national battery research centre the Faraday Battery Institute

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/administration/energyfutureslab/newssummary/news_3-10-2017-10-23-9


Video showcasing some of our latest research

Surface cooling vs Tab Cooling in Lithium-Ion Cells

Explaining how thermal management systems can affect degradation of lithium ion batteries.
Explaining how thermal management systems can affect degradation of lithium ion batteries.
  
 
 

Summer Science Exhibition 2017 @ The Royal Society

Billy, Xinhua and Sam took the electrospinning rig to the Royal Society in July to wow the public with nanofibers, as well as explaining the state-of-the-art in additive manufacturing techniques.


Dr Sam Cooper appointed lecturer in School of Design Engineering - April 2017

Dr Sam Cooper is appointed lecturer in the school of design engineering at Imperial College London, and extends the group to 5 academic groups working together.


Imperial Racing Green's Fuel Cell Shell Eco-Marathon Vehicle Powers into Competition - 2nd July 2016

Imperial Racing Green is a student-led project aimed at designing, making and racing zero-emission vehicles. In it's inaugural year in London, Imperial Racing Green entered a hydrogen fuel cell-supercapacitor passive hybrid vehicle based on the patent filed by the group. Supported by Bramble Energy, the Energy Futures Lab and group members Dr. Billy Wu, Dr. Greg Offer, Ashkan Kavai and Max Naylor-Marlow, the students powered past scrutineering onto the track. Along the way Dr. Billy Wu and Max Naylor-Marlow appeared on London Live talking about the vehicle. Watch this space for IRG's 2017 entry into the competition. 


Fuel cell band wins 2nd place at the engineering impact awards - 2nd Nov 2015

Dr. Billy Wu and Dr. Michael Parkes attended the National Instruments Engineering Impact awards held at the Royal Academy of Engineering where their submission: Zero Emission Music: A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Powered Band, won 2nd place. The student build fuel cell generator was used at a number of public engagement events to highlight zero-emission power generation with notable outing including powering part of the BBC 5Live radio studios during their energy day where they appeared on BBC Breakfast news and Blue Peter (winning the prestigious Green Blue Peter Badge). The fuel cell generator has also featured at the Imperial Festival powering a zero-emission band. 


 

Dr Billy Wu appointed lecturer in School of Design Engineering - 1st Jan 2015

Dr Billy Wu, PhD student (2010-2013), Postdoc (2013-2014) is appointed lecturer in the new school of design engineering at Imperial College London, and extends the group to span 3 departments with 4 academic groups working together.


Christoph Mazur & Christopher Emmott are Commended in the Global Sustainability Film Awards - 8th Dec 2014

This movie was created by Christopher Emmott and Christoph Mazur (EES group PhD candidate), supported by the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London. The original two part documentary film, is available at http://poweringthetopoftheworld.wordpress.com/