2024

03/27/2024
Youngju’s paper on the PEO-SN solid polymer electrolyte is formally published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Congratulations!

03/25/2024
Dr. Bai gave an invited Graduate Colloquium in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Illinois University. Thanks to Dr. Tao Li for the invitation and hospitality!

02/26/2024
Dr. Bai gave an invited talk at the Gordon Batteries Research Conference 2024 in Ventura, California. Thanks to the organizers and audience!

02/21/2024
Led by Dr. Xianglin Li in MEMS Department, we were selected to receive a grant from ARPA-E Propel-1K program to develop a novel Li-air flow battery to propel electric planes! Check out the official press release and WashU news.

2023

06/06/2023
Youngju’s paper on bipolar separators and the application in Zn metal batteries is formally published in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. Congratulations!

04/14/2023
The Board of Trustees approved Dr. Bai’s application for Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor. Congratulations!

04/12/2023
Rajeev’s paper on the critical current density in garnet electrolyte is formally published in the journal of ACS Energy Letters. Congratulations!

2022

07/13/2022
Our group received a new NSF grant from the Electrochemical Systems program to investigate the ion polarization and electrochemical limits in ceramic solid electrolytes.

04/14/2022
Dr. Bai was invited by the Academy of Science of St. Louis to give a virtual talk to the general public on Building Safe and Sustainable Batteries. Dr. Bai enjoyed interactions with the audience very much. Check out the recording on YouTube to get some battery 101 knowledge and learn why the anode-free sodium battery offers a sustainable alternative for energy storage.

03/25/2022
Shubham’s second paper got formally accepted by Cell Reports Physical Science. Congratulations! It is a nice extension of our unique linear stability analysis first introduced in our 2011 Nano Letters paper. It also revealed that particles in battery electrodes are kind of intelligent. They have their own autonomous principles to respond to our operation requests.

03/22/2022
Following Youngju’s award in 2021, Shubham becomes the second student in our group to win the Graduate Student Research Impact Award. Congratulations!

03/18/2022
Dr. Bai was invited to contribute a “Voice” article to explain the importance of anode-free batteries for sustainability. This short opinion is now published online in the journal One Earth.

02/01/2022
Rajeev successfully defended his thesis proposal. Congratulations!

01/28/2022
Dr. Bai was invited to serve as an Associate Editor for the journal Frontiers in Energy Research.

01/17/2022
Poom successfully defended his thesis proposal. Congratulations!

01/14/2022
Dr. Bai’s symposium proposal for the MRS 2022 Fall Meeting got accepted and officially approved. Many thanks to the co-organizers!

01/06/2022
Ge’s paper on the N/P ratios of Li-ion batteries got accepted by Electrochimica Acta. Congratulations to Ge and the coauthors Shubham and Poom!

2021

12/27/2021
Bingyuan’s 2nd paper on sodium metal anode got accepted by Advanced Energy Materials. Congratulations!

12/17/2021
Doctoral students Penghao Zhang and Ethan Boutelle joined our group. Welcome!

12/14/2021
Our first collaborative work with Prof. Feng Lin’s group at Virginia Tech got accepted by Nano Energy. Congratulations!

09/10/2021
Master student Ms. He Zhou from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science joined our group to work on battery nanomaterials. Welcome!

09/10/2021
Dr. Bai gave an invited talk in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at the University of Houston, introducing our latest work on the initiation of metal dendrites in various systems.

07/08/2021
Dr. Bai’s invited book chapter “Interphases for alkali metal anodes” for the Encyclopedia of Energy Storage got published online.

05/20/2021
Youngju received the 2021 EECE Research Impact Award. Congratulations!

04/12/2021
Dr. Bai gave an invited talk at the ACS Spring Meeting, introducing our latest work on the analytical investigations on alkali metal batteries.

04/05/2021
Bingyuan’s 1st paper on Na metal batteries was accepted by Advanced Science. Congratulations!

02/24/2021
Dr. Bai served on an NSF panel. It was a great experience seeing old and new friends and discussing fundamental science.

02/11/2021
Abstracts by Shubham, Rajeev, Bingyuan, and Poom on four different research topics were just accepted for oral presentations at the 239th ECS Meeting. Congratulations!

01/27/2021
Shubham’s 1st paper on graphite electrode was accepted by Advanced Energy Materials. Congratulations!

01/25/2021
PhD student Fubin Liu joined our group for a 6-week long research rotation. He will focus on the charge transfer kinetics analysis of a microbial fuel cell. Welcome!

01/22/2021
Dr. Bai received the NSF Career Award to support the investigation of mesoscale spatiotemporal heterogeneities in battery electrodes. Check the public abstract for more details.

2020

12/11/2020
Dr. Bai hosted the virtual visit and seminar by Prof. Joaquín Rodríguez-López from the University of Illinois. Thank you for a fascinating talk on the SECM visualization and diagnosis of electrochemical interfaces of energy materials!

11/20/2020
Dr. Bai gave an invited talk for the NSF AI Institute (Planning) of Arizona State University. Thank Dr. Yi Ren for the kind invitation!

10/21/2020
Youngju and Bingyuan’s paper was selected by the handling Editor as one of the top 10% of papers published in Energy & Environmental Science in 2020. The selection is based on “the exceptionally positive referee reports received during peer review, along with the Editor’s assessment of the significance and impact of the paper.” Congratulations to Youngju and Bingyuan, and all other authors of the 2020 EES HOT Articles!

08/11/2020
Youngju and Bingyuan’s paper was accepted by Energy & Environmental Science. Congratulations!

05/08/2020
Dr. Bai received the 2020 Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching.

05/01/2020
Dr. Bai gave a seminar to the EECE graduate students on the topic of “Effective Scientific Communications”. Hope it was clear and helpful!

04/18/2020
Congratulations to Nick for accepting the offer from the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, among many others from top universities in the US and UK.

2019

12/06/2019
PhD students Rajeev and Poom officially joined the Bai Research Group today! Welcome!

10/18/2019
PhD student Ms. Ge Mu from the Beijing Institute of Technology joined our group for a one-year visit. Ge will focus on understanding the fundamental mechanisms of Si-related batteries! Welcome!

09/06/2019
Dr. Bai received a four-year research grant from NSF to support the investigation of stable alkali metal anodes in liquid electrolytes. Check the public abstract for more details.

09/04/2019
Dr. Bai visited the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri and gave a seminar to the graduate students.

07/01/2019
Congratulations to Jinzhao for moving to Arizona State University to become a PhD student of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

04/09/2019
Undergraduate student Nick was awarded a summer research grant to work in our lab, investigating the anion intercalation dynamics in graphite electrodes.

2018

12/11/2018
Jinzhao successfully defended his master thesis today. Congratulations!

12/06/2018
PhD students Youngju and Bingyuan officially joined our group. Welcome!

11/21/2018
Our Joule paper was highlighted by a Preview article, The Many Shapes of Lithium, by Dr. Choudhury from Stanford. Thank you!

11/04/2018
Dr. Bai paper with Jinzhao as the second author was published online in Joule. Congratulations on our first paper from WashU. The study was highlighted by WashU official newsletter in a Record story, and  sifted out as one of the “10 Ionizing Papers” in September 2018 by Research Interface.

07/04/2018
Dr. Bai was selected as the winner of the 2018 ISE-Prize for Electrochemical Materials Science, in recognition of “his research that uniquely combines theory and experiments at the intersection of electrochemistry, thermodynamics, and fluid and solid mechanics.” Congratulations to all the 2018 ISE Award winners!

05/24/2018
Dr. Bai received an InCEES seed grant to develop safe ceramic separators to block lithium dendrites. Thank InCEES for the critical support!

03/06/2018
Dr. Bai served on a review panel for NSF. It was a nice trip, meeting quite a few old and new friends!

2017

12/07/2017
PhD student Shubham and Master student Jinzhao joined the Battery Analytical Investigation group! Welcome!

09/25/2017
Dr. Bai gave a seminar to the graduate students of IMSE at WashU.

07/01/2017
Dr. Bai officially started working at WashU.