Ekaterina Pomerantseva
Drexel University, PA·Materials Science
Lithium-ion batteries power phones, cars and the electric grid, but they can catch fire and depend on lithium, which is limited in supply. Aqueous zinc-ion batteries, which shuttle zinc ions through a water-based electrolyte, could be safer, cheaper and kinder to the environment.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
aqueous zinc-ion batteries
zinc-ion battery
cathode materials
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Test whether chemically preintercalating ions between the layers of MXene-derived bilayered vanadium oxide widens the interlayer spacing and speeds up zinc ion movement in aqueous zinc-ion battery cathodes.
- Suppress cathode dissolution into the electrolyte by replacing some vanadium with another transition metal, using solid-solution MXenes (carbide nanoflakes containing mixed metals) as starting materials.
- Improve stability and fast-charging by forming oxide/carbon interfaces or conductive carbon protective layers, controlled by tuning the thickness of the MXene nanoflake precursors.
- Uncover how the electrodes are stabilized at slow and fast cycling rates using in situ XRD, scanning electron microscopy and pH measurements during battery operation, and measure ion diffusion and charge storage.
More about the research
Their main bottleneck is the cathode, the electrode that must repeatedly take in and release zinc ions without falling apart over many charge and discharge cycles.
Why it matters
Safer, lower-cost batteries that do not depend on scarce lithium could help store renewable energy and run electronics and vehicles with less fire risk. By working out how to keep vanadium oxide cathodes stable and fast-charging, this work could help make aqueous zinc-ion batteries a practical alternative for grid-scale and portable energy storage.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Laisuo Su
University of Texas at Dallas, TX·Materials Science
Determine how the chemistry and concentration of non-reactive crowding agents and zinc salts modulate the Zn2+ solvation shell, ion pairing, and ion transport in bulk aqueous electrolytes.
Md Mahbubul Islam
Wayne State University, MI·Materials Science·Early-career
Predict how structure relates to catalytic activity for single-atom catalysts on nitride MXenes and transition metal oxides in Mg-CO2 batteries, using density functional theory combined with machine learning.
Feifei Shi
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Chemistry·Early-career
Characterize electrical double layer properties in lithium-ion battery electrolytes by electrocapillarity on a static mercury electrode, measuring interfacial free energy, ion surface excess and potential of zero charge.
The school
Drexel University: 11 labs on PI Pages, $170M a year on research, 282 research doctorates a year.
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