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New Delhi : Dr Malik Abdul Wahid from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar is a recipient of the INSPIRE Faculty award instituted by the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, working in the area of energy research towards marriage of material science and electrochemistry to develop sustainable energy and affordable energy sources. His focus is mainly on electrodes and electrolyte material electrochemistry.
The major components of Dr Malik’s current research interests include material research on the electrode development for Sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery, which offers a 20% cost reduction compared to present Lithium-ion (Li-ion) technology. He has been focusing on the two aspects, i.e., cost reduction and efficiency elevation. For the former, he is currently focused upon stabilisation of a combination of carbon-based anodes and organic cathodes while for the latter, he is exploring the new cathode chemistries.
Along with his collaborators at IISER Pune, Dr. Malik developed a Si-Phosphorene nano-composite material for efficient Si stabilistion as an anode in Li-ion battery, which was published in the journal Sustainable Energy Fuels. The obtained material delivers five times more capacity than carbon-based electrodes and can be fully charged in about 15 minutes.
His team at NIT Srinagar employed a simple hydrothermal strategy to synthesise reduced graphene oxide (rGO) wrapped high aspect ratio 1-dimensional SbSe nano-structure. The work has been published in the journal Chem Phys Chem. They achieved a decent performance with the reversible capacity of 550 mAhg-1 at a specific current of 100 mAg-1which implies that 5 to 6g of synthesised material would run a high range android cell phone.
“INSPIRE Faculty award is a prestigious award and should be distinguished from a regular faculty position in any institute. To honour the positions, I have co-founded a center of excellence (COE), namely, the Interdisciplinary Division of Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (iDRAEM) at NIT Srinagar,” Dr. Malik said, according to a PIB release.
At present, this centre co-founded by Dr. Malik, caters to the research in the advanced areas of energy storage and super-hydrophobic surfaces for water harvesting, besides focusing on the local resources of J&K.