Materials' Chemistry:

In order to explore the full potential of nanosructured materials it is critical that these materials have to be fabricated rationally following designed patterns with a high degree of control over the size, location, packing manner, dimensionality, uniformity and shape. Precise control over a wide range of diameters, lengths, spacing, cross-sectional shapes and locations of nanostructures can enable development of nanoscale materials and high efficiency devices for clean energy applications including electrodes with increased and stable charge capacity in rechargeable batteries and supercapacitors 

Nano Structured Materials For Energy Storage (Rechargeable batteries / Supercapacitors):

  • Rechargeable batteries like Li-ion batteries are the technology of choice for portable electronics because of their omnipresence from mobiles to space applications, for their impressive energy density and lighter weight compared to traditional batteries. The high energy efficiency of Li-ion batteries allows their use in electric vehicles and various electric grid applications including the energy harvested from wind, solar, geo-thermal and other renewable sources, thus contributing to build an energy-sustainable economy. In view of these expanding applications of Li-ion batteries, the goal is to increase their energy density along with lower cost. One way to achieve these goals is to develop new electrode materials with higher specific capacity than conventionally used materials, while maintaining the stable cycle life. We are working on development of high energy density, stable electrode materials for rechargeable batteries (Li-ion, Na-ion, Li-S). Several materials including silicon, metal oxides/hydroxides, metal phosphides/sulphides, polymers, heteroatom doped carbons, CNTs/CNHs/CNFs, 2D analogues of graphene etc and their composites are being explored

         

Nanoscale Advances, 2, 2914, 2020

 

ChemElectroChem,7, 3291, 2020

  • Ultracapacitors are the intermediate devices between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries. They have key advantages, as they can provide high power than batteries and can store higher energy than conventional capacitors while being used for millions of cycles. Most of the commercial supercapacitors are based on activated carbon electrodes. We are developing alternate high energy materials based on EDLC as well as pseaudocapacitive mechanisms to enhance the overall performance of supercapacitors.

Carbon, 128, 287, 2018

  • Flexible Energy Storage Devices are handy, lightweight, compact, mechanically flexible devices sought for energy requirements of contemporary technologies such as bendable displays, implantable, wireless medical contrivances etc. We are developing materials and devices solutions for flexible ultracapacitors.

          

ACS: Appl. Mat. & Interf. 11, 18349, 2019        ACS: Sust. Chem. & Eng. 8, 6433, 2020