We are delighted to share the news that St Anne’s Fellow, Professor Saiful Islam, has been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environment, Sustainability and Energy Prize.
Professor Islam’s award recognises his pioneering work to develop next-generation materials to help deliver new clean energy technologies. In particular, his research uses powerful computer modelling techniques to reveal the atom-scale processes underpinning the properties of lithium battery materials for electric vehicles and a new type of solar cell compound called perovskite.
He said: ‘Low carbon energy is one of the most urgent challenges of our time in tackling climate change. The next generation of green energy technologies depends on new materials and greater understanding. My research philosophy is to combine a deeper atomic-scale understanding of energy materials with experimental investigation.’
Professor Islam currently leads the Faraday Institution CATMAT project, which is researching next-generation cathode materials that could significantly increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. He has received several awards including the 2022 Royal Society Hughes Medal and 2020 American Chemical Society Award in Energy Chemistry. He presented the 2016 BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the theme of energy, which included a Guinness World Record lemon battery, made from 3000 lemons.
On the award, Professor Islam said: “I am delighted and very honoured to receive this award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. I would like to acknowledge and thank the fantastic contributions from my research group – both past and present.”
Two further academics from the Oxford Department of Chemistry were also recognised — you can read more here.