MCG Ph.D. candidate Minfei recently gave a talk at the Varsity Sci 2021 Symposium, representing Cambridge against Oxford. The title of his talk was "High performance anode strategy in Li based batteries: Li metal anode and Si-based anode". Minfei briefly introduced the current portable device market energy supply situation, as well as touched a bit on two of his projects on Li metal anode and Si-based anode, respectively.
Minfei also took up a few questions at the Q&A session, including "How is your perspective on whether there would be any challenger for LIBs in the near future?", and "How to tackle the disadvantages brought by the narrow potential window in aqueous-based secondary battery systems, such as ZIBs?" Minfei gave a brief response to each: for the first one, indicating Na-ion batteries recently commercialised as a good addition for LIBs, greener batteries such as ZIBs from an environmental perspective are nominated; for the second one, there are already some studies on this aspect, including using condensed electrolyte (e.g. 1 M to 20 M) to widen the potential window, also remember to pick the right range to avoid side reactions such as HER and ORR.
Varsity Sci 2021 Symposium this year featured a number of notable speakers, including two Nobel Laureates, Prof. M. Stanley Whittingham (Chmistry 2019) of Binghamton University, USA and Prof. Randy Schekman (Physiology or Medicine 2013) of UC Berkeley, USA.