Congratulations to Dr Jie Yang who passed his PhD viva for a thesis entitled, "Multiphysics Modelling and Optimisation of Advanced Battery Electrodes." Jie completed his PhD journey under the supervision of Dr Wei Tan, with second supervisor Prof Ana Sobrido providing invaluable guidance throughout.

The thesis tackled mass transport and interfacial reaction limitations across two key energy storage systems: lithium-ion battery silicon anodes and vanadium redox flow battery electrodes. Jie developed coupled phase-field and elastoplastic fracture models to design porous and hollow ellipsoidal silicon particle architectures that resist the fracture and pulverisation caused by huge volume expansion during cycling. On the flow battery side, he correlated bismuth electrodeposition conditions with catalytic performance and elucidated bilayer carbon electrode mechanisms — work that delivered substantial gains in discharge capacity and energy efficiency.

Jie's examiners were Dr Salvatore Grasso (internal) and Dr Xu Yang (UCL, external), who both engaged closely with the multiphysics and multiscale nature of the work spanning experiment and computation.

His research has already resulted in one published paper — on phase-field modelling of fracture in silicon particles during lithiation-delithiation (Engineering with Computer), with two further papers on redox folow battery currently under review.

Wei commented that "Jie has been very creative and persistent to address problems in research and has created strong bond with Dr Tan and Prof Sobrido's group. He has mastered both experiment and computational skills, it has been wonderful to work with Jie in the last 4 years."