With increased penetration of renewable electricity from wind and solar, that modern electricity grid is expected to be more dynamic as it actively responds to supply and demand of renewable electricity. In this scenario, redox flow batteries are seen as a key technology for longer-term energy storage (time ≥ 4 hours). This SLP is an opportunity to perform a review of various chemistries for flow batteries, compute the levelized cost of storage and determine the key limiting factors that prevent widespread commercialization of this technology.

Hydrogen gas is a common chemical feedstock in a wide variety of industrial processes and also a potential energy carrier. Conventional process for hydrogen generation are carbon intensive. Water electrolyzers are electrochemical devices that use electricity to split water into its elemental components (H2 and O2).

BTP
Developing an understanding the effect of microplastics on cellular function is important. This project will involve preparing microplastics from common commercial polymers (such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene and polyesters) and their thorough characterization. One aspect of this project will be to come up with a protocol to generate fluorescently tagged microplastics to allow them to be tracked as they are ingested by cells. Subsequently, cells will be exposed to these microplastics and their response will be studied.