Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

Solidifying batteries for safe and reliable electric vehicles

The paradigm shift towards renewable energy sources has sparked the development of various technologies reliant on clean energy. In recent years, the global surge of battery-powered electric vehicles has revolutionized the transportation industry by mitigating environmental concerns inherent to gasoline-powered vehicles. Currently, every mass-produced electric vehicle utilizes lithium-ion batteries, which are a critical component of electric vehicles that dictates factors such as driving range and cost. Though lithium-ion batteries have played a pivotal role in facilitating the electric vehicle revolution, they pose a severe safety risk due to their highly flammable liquid component. My research focuses on replacing this liquid component with a solid one, which requires new materials discovery and engineering design. By using a solid-state battery configuration, we can enable electric vehicles with fast charging time, long driving range, low cost, and safe operation.

Justin Kim
PhD candidate, Mechanical and Materials Engineering
- Western University

Supervisor
Xueliang Sun

Justin is a PhD candidate in Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Western University. He graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science from the University of British Columbia. During his undergraduate career, Justin had the opportunity to conduct research at various institutions in Korea, where he developed a passion for advanced energy storage systems. One of his main goals is to accelerate the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries to enable electric vehicles with long lifetime, low cost, fast charging, and safe operation.

You can connect with Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtkimm/.

View Justin's work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/inspiringminds/383/