Shashank Sundriyal joined CATRIN after winning the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Individual Fellowship (MSCA) from Horizon Europe. Thanks to this support, he started, in January, his work on the Z-ION project that should contribute to the development of safer and greener zinc-based batteries. Aristides Bakandritsos from CATRIN is the mentor of the two-year Z-ION project called “Teaming Conductivity and Chemical Functionality in Metal-Organic Frameworks for Zinc-Ion Batteries”.
“Zinc-ion batteries are among the most promising electrochemical energy storage technologies because they are cheap, sustainable and safe and in principle offer one of the highest volumetric energy densities necessary for storing large amounts of energy per volume unit. Z-ION is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which include clean and sustainable transport as well as affordable and clean energy for all. The research aims to make a significant contribution to the progress in transport decarbonization and to ensure the flexibility and efficiency of our current electricity grid system, enabling increased use of renewable energy sources,” said Bakandritsos, explaining the objective of the project.
“The Z-ION project develops and employs tailor-made graphene derivatives with conductive metal organic frameworks as hybrid electrode composites. In addition to the laboratory scale, the Z-ION project aims to develop a prototype zinc-ion battery device in the pouch cell design in collaboration with Pleione Energy in Athens, Greece, an innovative company that develops and provides technologically advanced solutions for the energy and space sector,” said Sundriyal.
MSCA is part of the EU Horizon Europe programme, which aims to promote excellence by funding innovative research projects.