1. Lithium-ion
Among the various existing technology, Li-ion battery have become the power source for portable electronic devices , because of their high energy density and design flexibility.
Our group aims to synthesis nanosized, meso porous metal oxides for cathode as well as anode materials which can exhibit a high rate capability and stable capacity on cycling.
2. Li-air Battery
Li-air battery is one of the prominent candidates for future high energy storage devices. It have promise to reach over 3-fold greater energy density than lithium-ion batteries at the fully packed cell level.
It has theoretical specific energy 5200 Wh\kg including oxygen and 11140 Wh\kg excluding oxygen. This value is higher than the heat of combustion lower heating value (LHV) energy density of 5524Whkg−1 for methanol/air, but, less than the LHV energy density of 11,860Whkg−1 for gasoline/air.
During discharge of a lithium-air battery, oxygen is reduced by lithium ions to form lithium(per) oxides .while charging peroxides dissociated into li and oxygen.
Critical challenges that limit the practical use of this technology include the sluggish oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) (during discharge) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) kinetics (during charging) in Li+-containing aprotic electrolytes. Therefore, it is vital to develop an effective electro catalyst for both ORR and OER, namely a bifunctional electro catalyst.
So we are intended to find the suitable bifunctional electro catalyst which easy the oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution and improving cycle life of li air battery.
3. Electrochemical Supercapacitors
Electrochemical super capacitors are attractive electrochemical devices because of their high power density and longer cycle life as compared to batteries. These are used as auxiliary energy devices along with batteries to sustain the high power demand.Our group is focusing on the synthesis of inexpensive and environmental friendly transition metal oxides, mainly manganese oxide for supercapacitor studies. It is desired to synthesize mesoporous nanostructure MnO2 to get high Specific capacitance and improved rate capability.
4. Electro Catalysis
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines H2 &O2 to produce electrical energy with water & heat as its by products.
Our research is focused on the development of conducting polymers modified by Pt, Pt-Ru for oxidation of small organic molecules like methanol, ethanol , formic acid, formaldehyde, etc..
5. Mg-ion Battery
Magnesium (Mg) has attracted much attention as the active material of high energy density batteries, because it has such advantages as low electrochemical equivalence (12.15 g eq−1), considerably negative electrode potential (−2.3 V vs. SHE), less expensive and safer than lithium. Despite of the practical use of primary and reserve batteries , development of rechargeable Mg batteries has been retarded due to two problems:
- 1. difficulties in the reversibility of an Mg negative electrode concerning its passivating characteristics, and
- 2. a lack of appropriate nonaqueous media that conduct Mg2+ species . Moreover, the choice of the cathode (positive electrode) material of the Mg battery is limited, because it is not easy to achieve reversible processes for Mg intercalation/deintercalation even in host compounds with layered structures.
Our group aims to synthesis nanosized, meso porous metal oxides for cathode as well as anode materials which can exhibit a high rate capability and stable capacity on cycling.
6. Photoelectrolysis of water for solar energy storage
Light assisted electrochemical splitting of water to produce hydrogen and oxygen is a prominent method for solar energy storage. This solar-to-chemical energy conversion involves the oxidation of water to oxygen and the reduction of resultant protons to hydrogen. The efficiency of the overall reaction is limited by the complex four electron-four proton oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Hence, the design and demonstration of a stable and efficient OER catalyst is a key challenge in solar energy storage. We are interested in the development of efficient OER/HER catalysts that can operate under ambient condition with moderate over potential.