Research Group of Functional Material for Energy

To realize a carbon-neutral society, there is a strong need for dramatic advances in energy storage technologies that enable efficient use of energy and conversion technologies between electric power and energy media. The key to the advancement of these technologies is the development of highly functional materials with consideration of cost and resource supply risk. Our group is developing new materials for energy devices, such as inorganic active materials for sodium-ion and potassium-ion batteries that are mainly composed of non-rare elements that are abundant on the earth's surface with low resource constraints, catalyst materials that control the conversion of electricity, hydrogen, and valuable materials, electrolytes that do not require volatile solvents for safety. In addition, we develop hydrogen storage materials, molten salts and hybrid materials that express new functions. We also develop energy devices using the materials we have developed. Furthermore, to improve the performance of these materials and electrochemical devices, spectroscopic techniques are applied for structural analysis and characterization of the properties, and also, we conduct the reaction mechanisms and the manifestation mechanisms of the properties in the devices.
Based on these R&D of functional materials, we aim to design materials and new type of energy devices that are clean and have low resource risk.