A PhD student from the Chimie Balard Cirimat Carnot Institute received the 1st Nature Energy Award in recognition of her excellent research results, presented at the E-MRS 2019 Spring meeting held at the end of May.
1st Nature Energy Award
Charlotte Bodin, from the Institute Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (ICGM), received the 1st Nature Energy Award for her oral presentation entitled “Biredox Ionic Liquids: New Opportunity For High Energy Supercapacitors” during the European Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in Nice. In addition to a certificate and a monetary award, Charlotte received a one-year subscription to the journal.
Nature Energy, which sponsored the award, is a scientific journal publishing research on energy, from its generation and distribution to the impact that energy technologies and policies have on society.
Towards flexible and self-healing supercapacitors
In the search for high performing, cheap and eco-friendly batteries and supercapacitors, the fabrication of new flexible materials is an important challenge. Charlotte’s Ph.D. thesis research on new binders and electrolytes based on ionic liquids is a step in this direction. After synthesising these new components, their preparation was optimised in order to obtain a flexible supercapacitor. The interactions between the electrode and redox system were studied during the project, to better understand the chemistry behind these devices.
The young researcher is in the final year of her Ph.D studies, funded by the RS2E and carried out under the supervision of Olivier Fontaine and Frédéric Favier (AIME group of the ICGM) in collaboration with Patrice Simon and Pierre-Louis Taberna, from the CIRIMAT in Toulouse.
RS2E, a network for electrochemical energy storage
The RS2E is a French research and technology transfer network devoted to energy storage devices: rechargeable batteries, supercapacitors and other alternative devices. These are intended for commercial products such as electric vehicles and portable electronics, as well as for the storage of electricity produced from renewable sources. The network is composed of 17 university and national laboratories, 15 industrial partners (such as Airbus, Alstom, Renault) and 3 public organisations specialised in tech transfer.
Initiated in 2011, the network is coordinated by Profs Jean-Marie Tarascon and Patrice Simon, both recognised world-class experts in electrochemical energy storage.