An industry fellowship designed to foster relationships between industrial and academic battery researchers has been awarded to the University of Strathclyde, Strat.sc.uk reports.
The University of Strathclyde is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow’s second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first technological university in the United Kingdom. Strathclyde is one of six universities selected for the fellowships awarded by the Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent institute for electrochemical energy storage science and technology.
Strathclyde will work with CDO2 Limited, Mayfield, East Sussex, UK, a business incubator and centre for research commercialisation, to design a micro-electrochemical system (MEMS) fabrication process for a new type of magnetometer.
CDO2 was founded in 2004 by Gary Kendall to develop complex financial risk analysis software through pioneering cloud computing technologies. CDO2 is now a leader in current density imaging and developing this new technology for application to Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries, improving range, health and safety.
The research will enable the device’s miniaturization and potential use as a low-cost sensor in battery management systems, helping to estimate state-of-charge and -health and to detect faults early. Funding of £68,887 has been awarded for the two-year project.
The fellowships are enabling academics and industrialists to undertake a mutually beneficial, electrochemical energy storage research project that aims to solve a critical industrial problem and that has the potential for near- and longer-term benefit to the wider UK battery industry.
Dr Terry Dyer, a Research Fellow in Strathclyde’s Department of Physics, is the University’s lead on the project. He said: “I work in the Quantum Hub in Sensing and Timing and on several Innovate UK funded technology transfer projects; this Fellowship is closely aligned with University’s flagship projects under the National Quantum Technology Programme. It seeks to evaluate a potential disruptive technology which could provide a low-cost yet highly effective solution for future generations of electric vehicle battery management systems, as well as in battery production line testing.”
Ian Ellerington, Head of Technology Transfer at the Faraday Institution, said: “This is the Faraday Institution’s latest initiative to deliver application-inspired battery research as part of our mission to accelerate breakthroughs in energy storage technologies. The programme joins our Entrepreneurial Fellowships, Industry Sprints and our main research projects, all targeted at achieving industry-defined goals.”
Each fellowship will enable a university researcher to work in an industry setting, or a scientist employed in industry to work on a project within a university department. The projects will begin at an appropriate time as laboratories reopen after the enforced lockdown period.
Strathclyde is one of four successful applicants which are new to the Faraday Institution programme.
Strathclyde is the only academic institution that has been a partner in all four EPSRC-funded Quantum Technology Hubs in both phases of funding. The Hubs are in Sensing and Timing, Quantum Enhanced Imaging, Quantum Computing and Simulation and Quantum Communications Technologies.