Research

Our research efforts focus on design, synthesis, and application of functional nanostructured energy materials that can contribute fundamental as well as practical platform to solving the environmental and energy issues. The investigations range from fundamental understanding for growth mechanism of novel nanostructured materials to numerous applications in the following areas

1. Next generation of electrode materials for Li-ion & Li-metal batteries

 - Si@C anode materials for LIBs

 - Growth mechanism of Si anode via metallothermic reduction

 - Sea-sand derived Si anode materials for LIBs

2. Efficient non-Pt based electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) of fuel cell

 - Heteroatom-doped carbon for efficient ORR electrocatalysts

 - Biomass derived carbon for efficient ORR electrocatalysts

 - Hierarchical & N-doped carbons for efficient ORR electrocatalysts

3. High-performance flexible & stretchable supercapacitors 

 - Highly porous & heteroatom-doped carbons for EDLC

 - MOFs derived metal oxide@carbon (MO@C) composites for hybrid supercapacitors

 - All-solid-state flexible & stretchable supercapacitors with high energy & power density

4. Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH)

 - Development of sorbents capable of harvesting water from atmosphere

 - Fast sorption kinetics under arid condition (RH < 30%)

 - Large-scale outdoor AWH device