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A message from the Director
 
 Charging a new future in battery technology
 
The rechargeable Lithium-ion battery has become a ubiquitous technology that underpins our lives, powering our mobile devices and electric cars, as well as providing efficient storage for renewably generated electricity. But there is still a great research effort underway to increase their efficiency and reliability, as the technologies of the future will have even greater thirst for the portable energy power of batteries.

But can the next breakthrough battery technology have a manufacturing home here in Australia?

At storEnergy, our research teams are pushing the frontiers of battery technology in different ways, some focusing on improving existing Li cells, to make them higher energy density, while others explore new battery formulations, such as replacing lithium with sodium. A key part of what we do is weaving together the strands of research, engineering and manufacturing expertise to create the seeds of a viable battery industry based in Australia. For example, one of our industry partners, Calix is exploring the manufacture of oxides for better electrolytes. Professor Jenny Pringle at Deakin University is working with Boron Molecular to demonstrate how manufacturing processes for the special salts that go into batteries can be up-scaled using flow chemistry to make them cleaner and cheaper.

I believe there is a strong industry interest in making Australia a world leader in battery manufacturing technology.

We (in the research team) have been trying to push batteries since the 1990s, and for such a long time there was no industry interest… and then the South Australia blackout happened, and Elon Musk offered his battery farm. It was like the penny dropped that there was an industry waiting to be born, and now all of a sudden batteries are the thing. The current LI cell dates from 1992, it is a nearly 30-year old technology. The markets are now at the tipping point in deciding what the next generation of batteries will be and who will make them—this is driven by all these new needs for batteries with different properties. I’m really excited about what is happening now in Australia, the forces are aligning, and there is real potential for the birth of a new industry from the translation of our research efforts.
Sodium-ion batteries: How close are they to becoming a reality?

storEnergy researchers, Jenny Sun and Dale Duncan, have sorted the facts from fiction surrounding the commercial and technological status and prospects of sodium-ion batteries in this perspective article.   
#storEnergySocials

Yes, storEnergy is online! Get engaged and check us out on LinkedIn, Instagram, twitter or at the Centre website. Here's a few of the top social media stories from around the Centre (and beyond) that you may have missed!
  • New H2X hydrogen car manufacturing site proposed for Port Kembla.
  • Great results using cheap cathodes for a sodium-sulphur battery in Monash-Deakin-IITB collaboration
  • Success with Calix’s LEILAC reactor in Heidelberg, Germany, has seen it’s development move to the next phase.
  • A paper out of Stanford has created some buzz looking at a new design strategy for electrolyte salts.
  • More out of Stanford with a series of seminars, the StorageX Initiative, featuring leading researchers.
  • Something different? Really just a cool photo of a wind turbine in Victoria’s 312MW wind farm

Centre Activity

 
General
  • New StorEnergy PhD position at QUT under Prof. Jose Alarco is now advertised!
  • Other PhD positions also available at Deakin's IFM.
  • Suleyman Yildiz has started his PhD project between Deakin and M. Brodribb with a supervisory team of Richard Brodribb, Patrick Howlett and Robert Kerr.
  • The website for the Deakin teacher training symposium is up! Check out the online educational materials prepared by the undergarduate teachers here.
  • Deakin PhD students Meisam and Sneha arrived safely back in Australia after being stranded in Munich for 2 months! Welcome back guys!
  • The series of thought-provoking ACES webinars continue. June 23rd featured a panel of journalists who gave their insights into the workings of science media. The webinars are free to register and recordings are available on the ACES cloudstor. Contact us for more info. 
Climate LaunchPad competition
 
Deakin has two teams competing in the global Climate LaunchPad competition, with both progressing through to the 'Boot Camp' stage. The competition is looking for ''nascent, breakthrough ‘green’ business ideas'' and is set up to help aspiring entrepreneurs grow their clean tech ideas into global businesses. Those teams who progress through the state finals, national finals and regional finals – will have an opportunity to pitch in front of a global audience at the virtual Global Grand Final, among the most innovative entrepreneurs from over 55 countries, as well as investors, media and industry leaders.

The two teams entered from Deakin are based on the group's technologies for sodium and lithium batteries. Here is a little bit of what the teams had to say;


Team Sodium (aka ElevenStore)
Our idea is based on sodium batteries for mobility applications e.g. buses, scooters, Auto-rickshaws in South East Asia and we want to focus it around cheap, affordable transportation. Our group is called ElevenStore - as sodium Na atomic number is 11 and we want to store the energy 🙂 

Team Lithium (aka Lionics Energy)
The name of the project is "Lionics Energy" which stands for Li+Ionic Liquid. Our battery electrolyte technology allows for the next generation of high energy-density lithium-based batteries to operate where Li-ion batteries perform poorly. The proposed business idea is to establish an advanced Lithium metal battery cell manufacturing facility that will serve niche markets, such as mining trucks operating in the hot Australian climate. The improved battery performance will aid in the electrification of mine sites and the truck fleet, thereby reducing diesel emissions and saving the planet from nasty fossil fuels. 
 
Meet your Centre - Simon Savage
In this series of feature articles and video interviews, we want to dig a little deeper into what makes all of our Centre participants tick. It is a light-hearted and informative way to get to know your fellow storEnergy colleagues.

This month we have our feature article on Ionic Industries' Managing Director, Simon Savage. 
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