- 11:41 AM, Sunday, 27 Jul 2025
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Electrochemical energy storage is a rapidly blooming domain raising a continuous flow of innovative ideas. The requisite for high energy and high power electrochemical systems with long service life is crucial in order to meet the rapid development of portable electronic devices, electric vehicles and smart grid electrification. We explore multifarious functional materials for various electrochemical energy storage systems including batteries and supercapacitors.
We use various electrochemical techniques to investigate corrosion behaviour of materials and its surface modification and coatings
Lithium-sulfur battery (LSB) is one among the attractive candidates of the next generation energy storage systems due to its preferable theoretical specific capacity and energy density. We fix on the design and development of functional nanomaterials for various components of lithium sulfur batteries including cathode, separator and electrolyte.
Development of novel cathode materials with better conductivity and polysulfide trapping ability is pivotal in improving the performance of LSBs. We focus on various host materials for sulfur including carbon based materials like porous carbon derived from biomass biomaterials, heteroatom/metal oxide doped porous carbon, conducting polymers, metal based compounds and hybrid nanomaterials. Novel multifunctional polymer binders and diverse additive materials are also being aimed in order to accelerate the battery performance.
Introduction of novel cell design can be brought about by the modification of separators. In LSBs, separator has to permit the passage of lithium ions simultaneously obstructing the movement of polysulfides. We work on controllably altering the commercial separators using functionalised barrier coatings including porous carbons, polymer electrolytes, lithiated polymers, inorganic functional materials and their composites.
Developing novel electrolytes and fabrication of batteries with low electrolyte to sulfur ratio is of outmost importance for realizing commercial lithium sulfur batteries. To date, the electrolytes employed include liquid electrolytes, solid-state electrolytes, ionic electrolytes and gel polymer electrolytes. Our group concentrates on developing safe, solid state, gel polymer electrolytes which can operate with enhanced charge discharge characteristics and prolong the life of the battery.
Electrochemical capacitors, better known as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors can provide high power and quick charging with exceptionally long cycle life. Supercapacitors are differentiated as electrical double layer capacitors (EDLC) and pseudocapacitors based on the charge storage mechanism.
Our group specifically design carbon based materials for EDLC which stores charge by non faradaic process and can deliver magnificent performance. Various high surface area carbon materials with wide pore structures, heteroatom doped carbon materials, biomass derived green and safe carbon materials are given emphasis.
Lithium ion capacitors is an overwhelming energy storage technology employing a battery type anode and a capacitor type cathode. Our group pay attention in developing anode materials for asymmetric lithium ion capacitors which can deliver improved Faradaic reaction kinetics and ultrahigh energy density. We synthesise and investigate different lithium metal vanadates based anode in aqueous electrolytes. Fabrication of asymmetric lithium ion capacitors using the above mentioned anode and carbon based cathode in non-aqueous electrolyte is further being studied. Research on various other inorganic functional materials as anode for lithium ion capacitors with extraordinary performance is also given focus.
Corrosion & material protection is recognized globally as a vital space to investigate and provide way out for the problems experienced by the material world. We investigate the corrosion behaviour of metallic materials in various environments. Also, we are interested in the fundamentals of electrochemical process, surface modification and coatings.
PhD
Completed:
1. 1. Sreekala K : Novel nanostructured multi-functional materials for high-energy lithium-sulfur batteries Dec. 2023
2. Haritha H: Strategies to develop materials for lithium storage in high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries and pseudocapacitors, July 2020
3. Reshma C:Pyrolytic heteroatom containing porous carbon materials for electrochemical energy storage applications, April 2019
Ongoing
1 Arjun Raj(ISRO): Solvent-Free Electrode Engineering for advanced Li-ion Cells
2. Harsha Haridas: Anticorrosive coatings
3. Tanaya Dutta: Electrode and Electrolyte material for post-lithium batteries
4. Krishnendu K S: High-Capacity electrodes for Sodium-ion Battery Technologies
5. Jithu Joseph: Nanoporous Activated Carbon Materials for Energy Storage
6. Aiswarya Samridh (ISRO) : Novel Binder Materials for Advanced Lithium-ion batteries
MTech
1. Siva Kumar: Investigations on hypergolicity and ignition delay of Isrosene-hydrogen peroxide bi-propellant, July2012
2. Pravendra Pratap Singh: Study on thermo-mechanical processing of titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V), May 2018
3. Aniket Shankarrao Raikwar: Development of Hybrid Electrode Material For Supercapacitor Application, May 2019
Anver Ali: Investigation on Corrosion Behavior of Martensitic Precipitation Hardenable Stainless Steel Sheets used in Liquid Rocket Engines, June 2021
