In the House Group, we are working to develop new energy materials that will help us achieve Net Zero. Finding efficient, low cost, and sustainable ways to store energy is critical to enabling the transition away from fossil fuels and to ensuring a reliable supply of renewable electricity from our grid. This is a major scientific challenge requiring the discovery of new materials and a deeper fundamental understanding of energy storage mechanisms.
We are focused on materials for next generation Li-ion rechargeable batteries and future Li-free technologies such as Na-, K-, Mg- and Ca-ion. To increase the energy density of these systems, new cathodes are needed with larger charge storage capacity and higher operating voltages. To achieve this, we exploit novel synthesis methods, target unique combinations of composition and structure, and apply the latest characterisation techniques to gain new insight into how they behave in the battery.
The group is based in the Centre for Energy Materials Research in the Department of Materials with close links to the Faraday Institution and Henry Royce Institute for advanced materials. The laboratories are equipped with comprehensive capabilities for the study of energy materials including battery cell fabrication, electrochemical testing, and materials characterisation all under inert atmosphere. We regularly make use of national synchrotron and neutron facitilies around the world and have extensive experience running in situ and operando experiments across a range of techniques.
