Education

PhD (No Corrections), Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge

MS, Materials Science & NanoEngineering, Rice University

BEng (Outstanding Graduate Award, the only awardee), New Energy Science & Engineering, Nanjing University

DOE Visiting Scholar, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Biography

Minfei is currently a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. He is also an affiliated lecturer at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, and sits on the Editorial Board at Battery Materials.

He received his PhD with No Corrections from Cambridge, under the supervision of Professors Vasant Kumar, Cate Ducati, and Manish Chhowalla FREng. During his PhD, he extended research collaborations with Professor Pulickel Ajayan (Rice), Professor Jia Zhu (Nanjing), Professor Guoran Li (Nankai), Professor Kai Xi (Xi'an JiaoTong), Dr Chongmin Wang (PNNL), and Dr Scott Chambers (PNNL). He is one of the very few students in the whole department to have passed PhD viva with No Corrections in the past decades.

Minfei studies correlations between interface physicochemical properties and device-level performance of Li-ion batteries. By quantifying and minimizing interfacial Li loss, he takes stronger control of its recovery to enhance battery lifespan. This Li loss-and-recovery philosophy has been successfully extended to Na/Zn systems, and beyond to earth-critical resources.

Minfei has published his research as (co) first/corresponding author in Nature Sustainability, Nature Reviews Clean Technology, Science Advances, Angewandte Chemie, Nano Letters, etc. He has 1 patent granted, 3 under filing. He is a reviewer for Wiley's book proposal and a regular reviewer for journals such as Angewandte Chemie. He has given 10 talks and 10 posters at other universities or international conferences, and has won many best paper/poster awards, such as ECS, ICNaB, IBA, etc. Minfei's research has led to 18 awards and 3 independent grants.

He has rich teaching (Cambridge Materials, Math; Nanjing) and supervision experience (10+ students).