September 18, 2014
Building a better battery powers research achievement
Research on a battery for an electric car and renewable energy storage started with the humble cassette player.
Dr Shulei Chou (pictured), a research fellow at UOW’s Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials, was this week awarded the 2014 Scopus Young Researcher Prize for Engineering and Technology.
The Scopus Young Researcher Awards are part of a global initiative by journal publishing house Elsevier to recognise and support outstanding young scientists and researchers in Australasia who have made significant contributions in their disciplines.
Entrants are judged across four criteria: number of publications; number of citations and impact; impact of research outside academia; and, the researcher’s contribution to the research community.
Dr Chou said his interest in energy storage began in junior high school when he began pulling apart alkaline batteries to see if he could get more power and out of them to keep his cassette player running.
“To save money, I tried to recharge the battery or change the shape of battery to get more capacity out,” he said. “It sometimes worked, but eventually the battery would die. I often disassembled the battery to get the graphite rod out to see how it was constructed.
Dr Chou had an initial taste of research into materials for batteries and energy storage through his undergraduate and masters degree at Nankai University in China.
Following graduation in 2007 Dr Chou continued his work through a PhD scholarship under UOW’s Professor Hua Kun Liu, Professor Shi Xue Dou and Dr Jiazhao Wang at ISEM.
Professor Dou’s ISEM team located at the UOW’s Australian Institute for Innovative Materials (AIIM), ranks among the leading research groups globally in battery research for applications including electric vehicles, renewable energy and implantable medical devices.
ISEM has built a strong reputation based on quality research and now ranks among the top 10 research groups globally in the areas of superconducting materials and lithium ion battery research.
During his three-year PhD at UOW Dr Chou worked on new materials for batteries and his hard work was rewarded with six-month fellowship in Canada to work on lithium-ion batteries, which are commonly used in consumer electronic devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones.
“In Canada my mind was transferred from fundamental research to industrial applications,” Dr Chou said. “I realised that one battery is a small but complicated system, yet small things may bring significant impact.
“Therefore, I tried different kinds of materials, novel structures, binders and additives to improve the performance.”
Dr Chou’s other success includes being awarded a highly competitive Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (APD) from Australian Research Council in 2011. He has also worked with several industry partners to successfully establish ARC Linkage projects to help battery manufacturers improve product performance.
“Now, I have several students to work with me on different components of batteries and the next generation battery systems for electric vehicle and renewable energy storage,” Dr Chou said.
“I would attribute my success to my supervisors and mentors who shared their knowledge and experience with me and encouraged me to achieve more. The excellent research environment and research support in UOW also helped a lot. My advice for other young researchers would be work hard, keep your mind open, searching for opportunities and hope for a bit of luck!”
Dr Chou received his award on 18 September at the Australasian Research Management Society (ARMS) Conference 2014 at the National Convention Centre in Canberra.
Media contact: Grant Reynolds, UOW Media & PR Officer, +61 417 010 350 or grantr@uow.edu.au.