– I thought, it would be interesting to live this far north for some time, but the most important thing for wanting to study in Oslo was the introductory meeting we had with the representatives from UiO, says Rabail Badar Abbasi from Pakistan.
Her Catalan co-student Mar Maller Roig agrees:
– I love nature and hiking, so Norway and Oslo were definitely a good fit. But yes, the main thing was meeting those who would become our supervisors. They were very friendly and seemed very open to new ideas and approaches, she says, referring to Associate Professor Alexey Koposov and Associate Researcher Carmen Cavallo, both working at the Department of Chemistry and the Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology.
ALISTORE European Research Institute (ERI) was created in the framework of a 5-year EC funded FP6 Network of Excellence (starting in 2004) and currently consists of 19 institutions performing cross cutting high-quality research in the field of batteries and battery materials.
Working with silicon nitride in batteries
Mar Maller Roig did her B.A. at the University Autonomous of Barcelona within the field of nanotechnology. While working on her undergraduate degree, she went on an Erasmus stay in Denmark and decided to apply for an Erasmus master?s programme.
– What Rabail and I are doing now is a so-called Erasmus Mundus Joint Master?s. It is a programme, where you spend four semesters at four different universities across Europe, with the opportunity to choose where you go for your last semester. We started in Warsaw (Poland), and then moved on to Toulouse (France), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and now Oslo (Norway). We will defend our thesis mid-September at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens, France), which is the coordinator of the MS programme within ALISTORE ERI, she explains.
Maller Roig?s research project evolves the development of silicon nitride as a promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries. An anode is the electrode where the electrons move out of the battery cell, she explains.
– When it comes to batteries, one of the main challenges is making them perform better and longer, and silicon nitride has been proved to be beneficial for achieving that goal. The nitride matrix stabilizes silicon, and it is cheaper, more efficient and more easily available than materials used today. I am looking at ways to synthesise and optimise it.
Improving emerging energy storage solutions using new materials
Rabail Badar Abbasi came to ALISTORE ERI with a B.A. in metallurgy and materials engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
– Where I come from: if you want a career in academia, you should go abroad. Several of my family members studied in the US, but Europe always seemed more attractive to me - my dad did Erasmus when he was a student. I applied to three different programmes, but the ALISTORE ERI felt more appealing to me as problems with poor efficiency of energy storage and conversion methods available in Pakistan have made me have an interest in this topic from a young age
Abbasi?s work differs a bit from what Maller Roig is doing.
– It involves something called a lithium-ion capacitor, which has been proposed for energy storage in applications undergoing frequent charge and discharge cycles at high current and short pulses. If you combine an electrode from a battery and an electrode from a supercapacitor, you get a different mechanism of charge transfer – kind of the best of both in terms of power and energy density. I work on the anode from the battery, she says, and further explains:
– Usually, we use conventional materials from lithium-ion battery anodes for this purpose, but only the surface layer of the material is active, so the bulk – i.e. the rest of the active material – is “wasted” and it does not perform well. My project is to design and synthesize a new material, which is deliberately designed for lithium-ion capacitor. No one has done work with materials this way, but we think it will improve the performance.
A valuable European research cooperation
Associate Professor Alexey Koposov is UiO?s focal point in the ALISTORE ERI cooperation.
– When ALISTORE ERI opened up for new members, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us. We jumped in, applied, and UiO was granted a spot to be part of ALISTORE ERI last summer. Being part of this network is extemely important for the University of Oslo. It provides us with visibility and opportunities to collaborate with major European universities on battery research, which is a central topic in materials science both in Europe and globally, he says.
– Nowadays, batteries are mostly used in cars, especially in Norway. However, if we think about the efficient use and implementation of renewable energy, aiming towards widespread use of solar panels and other sourses, we will need several types of energy storage. This is one of the big challenges for both industry and researchers.
Each university in the ALISTORE ERI cooperation can apply to host two master students from the programme. All in all there are 20 students who select where they want to go for their fourth and last semester.
– And we actually got two of them, which was a nice surprise, says Koposov.
The participation in such programme highlights the importance of the education in the battery science. With the battery industry rapidly growing across Europe, there will be a high demand for well-trained specialists in the field, which requires targeted education.
In addition to the master?s program, ALISTORE ERI offers a lot of other academic opportunities.
– There is a PhD-program, we can apply for funding of internal projects, and of course this collaboration means great opportunities to find excellent research partners when applying for external funding, explains Koposov.