Carbon based cathode materials for Aluminium-ion battery
Despite all the advantages, aluminum-ion batteries (AIB) are still facing a number of challenges that hinder the development of AIBs including the lack of proper cathode materials, low working voltage, insufficient specific capacity and poor cycling stability. Recently an advanced new AIB system with break-throughs in both conceptual cell design and electrochemical performance has been reported. The new AIB system is composed of an Al foil anode, a graphite cathode and an ionic liquid electrolyte. In a typical test, the AIB cell delivered a specific capacity of about 70 mAh/g with a well-defined discharge plateau of about 2 V. More surprisingly, it cycled 7500 times at a super high current density of about 4000 mA/g without capacity decay. Graphitic carbon-based cathode materials show very promising electrochemical performance. However, similar to Si electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, carbon materials also experience a dramatic volume change over repeated charge/discharge, leading to instability and safety issues. This project will explore different carbon based materials that might enhance the storage capacity and limit volume expansion, as possible cathode materials for AIBs.
Shaikat Debnath is a PhD student at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, while he has obtained the UQ-Research training Scholarship to support his research. He is also one of the 2019 UQ Global Change Scholars which is an initiative designed to produce future research leaders and is made up of 30 PhD candidates drawn from a range of schools and institutes across the university. In the last 10 years he has worked in a diverse field of engineering technology in both industries and academic research which includes in the area of energy storage (battery), solar cells, power system and energy market analysis, O&M of power stations, minerals processing etc. He is very passionate about the cheap and clean energy technologies and dreams of a pollution-free future world.
He did his Master of Engineering Science from the University of Malaya, Malaysia where he specialised in solar cells and Bachelor in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh.
Collaborations
He has collaborated with Prof Lianzhou Wang's group at UQ on aluminium ion battery cathode materials.
Key Publications
Hu, Y., Debnath, S., Hu, H., Luo, B., Zhu, X., Wang, S., Hankel, M., Searles, D.J. and Wang, L., 2019. Unlocking the potential of commercial carbon nanofibers as free-standing positive electrodes for flexible aluminum ion batteries. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 7(25), pp.15123-15130.
Debnath, S., Said, S. M., Roslan, M. F., Sabri, M. F. M., & Long, B. D. (2015). A DFT study on an alkali atom doped decahedral silver nanocluster for potential application in opto-electronics and catalysis. RSC Advances, 5(10), 7665-7672.
Debnath, S., Said, S. M., Rabilloud, F., Chatterjee, A., Rashid, M. M., & Mainal, A. (2015). Al–X and Cu–X [X= Li, Na] nano-alloys: a low cost alternative to silver and gold nanoparticles for plasmonic applications. RSC Advances, 5(72), 58128-58135.
Debnath, S., Said, S. M., Rabilloud, F., Chatterjee, A., Roslan, M. F., Mainal, A., & Mahmood, M. S. (2015). A DFT study of the chemical and optical properties of 7-atom Ag–X [X= Li, Na] nanoalloys for potential applications in opto-electronics and catalysis. RSC Advances, 5(119), 98583-98592.