About Us

Institution: Newcastle University

Specialism: Physical Chemistry
Institution: University of Leicester

Professor Andrew Abbott is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leicester. Professor Abbott specialises in research areas surrounding green chemistry, with a particular emphasis on electrochemical processes. He is actively developing novel solvent systems with industrial applications, such as metal deposition and dissolution. Much of his work to date has been in the development of novel processes using ionic liquids.

WORK STREAM 2 LEAD: Characterisation & Recycling

The recycling and analysis work stream is focussed on the safe and efficient segregation and repurposing of the battery cell constituents. The aim is to design a process which ensures the most efficient separation of the collectors, active materials, polymers and electrolytes. It will test viable solvo- and mechanical processes for delamination and include a variety of chemical and biochemical routes to regenerate and up-cycle the metal oxide fraction. Close collaboration by the Universities of Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leicester and Liverpool together with the Diamond Light Source will characterise the mechanical and morphological properties of the cell components as a function of age, providing an insight into degradation pathways. The work stream will demonstrate, on a realistic scale, the fast, efficient segregation and recovery of LiB materials aiding the circular economy in batteries.

Specialism: Robotics
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: PhD Dept Metallurgy and Materials FT

Ali Aflakian is a first-year candidate PhD student at University of Birmingham. He is currently working at Extreme Robotics Lab on a project called “Reuse and Recycling of Lithium-ion Batteries (RELIB)”, funded by the Faraday Institution. He received the B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT), Isfahan, Iran, in 2014.The title of his bachelor thesis was: Kinematics, Dynamics and Control of a spherical robot, Control of BHQ-1 in Simulink using Computed Torque Method and PID controller. In 2014, he was accepted for M.Sc. Degree in Mechatronics Eng. In University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. His M.Sc. thesis was concentrated on the cable-suspended robots. His work was based on using vision to following objects that useful for Spidercams.

Specialism: Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Dr Phoebe Allan is a Birmingham Fellow and lecturer in the School of Chemistry. Her research focuses on materials chemistry for energy storage using synchrotron and lab-based characterisation methods.

Prior to joining the University of Birmingham in 2018, Dr Allan held a Junior Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, and an Oppenheimer Fellowship from the School of Physical Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

From 2015 – 2017, she also worked as a beamline support scientist at Diamond Light Source – the UK’s synchrotron source. She completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews in 2012.

Institution: University of Birmingham

Specialism: Materials Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Professor Paul Anderson is the Principal Investigator for the Faraday ReLiB project. He is a Reader in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham and co-founder of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.

The synthesis and development of improved materials for energy applications has been a major theme of his research for over two decades, with particular interests in ion mobility in hydrogen storage materials and related Li+and H+electrolyte systems, and the efficient husbandry of the earth’s elemental resources.

Specialism: Electrochemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Dr Pierrot Attidekou’s research interest includes development of non-invasive characterization of high power density lithium-ion batteries and modelling. He is also interested in materials synthesis, characterization and cell assembly as well as cell characterization.

Institution: University of Birmingham

Specialism: Electrochemical Engineering
Institution: University College London

Dan Brett is Professor of Electrochemical Engineering at UCL, co-Director of the Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL) and Director of the UCL Advanced Propulsion Lab. He is an expert in electrochemical power systems with over 20 years’ experience of working in the field and is in the top-five academics in Europe based on number of publications over the last 10 years on fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors. In his academic role, Dan has raised over £40million of research income to the EIL and been acknowledged through awards such as the DeNora Prize (ISE) and Baker Medal (ICE). He is passionate about realising the ‘age of electrochemical power’ and accelerating e-chem technology to market. He is a founder and Director of Innovation for Bramble Energy, a founder and Director of Prosemino Ltd. and an academic founder and Expert Panel member of the Faraday Institution.

Institution: University of Oxford

Specialism: Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Paul leads the operational and commercialisation activity of the project. Paul has an extensive career working in the public sector, especially linked to the Education, Skills, Research & Technology Transfer agenda . Paul is particularly skilled at working through large complex public sector organisations and projects; engaging with stakeholders with competing agendas to deliver successful outcomes.

Institution: University of Leicester

Institution: University of Newcastle

Specialism: Microbiology & Bionotechnology
Institution: University of Edinburgh

Dr Virginia Echavarri-Bravo is a postdoctoral research associate in the Horsfall’s lab.

She has been researching the biological recycling of metals from waste and the synthesis of biogenic metallic nanoparticles with enhanced properties since 2015.

Specialism: Mechanical Engineering
Institution: Imperial College London

Jacqueline grew up in South Africa and completed first a B.Sc. in Zoology and then a B.Sc. in Computer Science, both at the University of Cape Town. This led to a career as an internet developer and, after moving to London, developing banking intranet tools. Since banking is not known for its social welfare activities, she decided to go back to study clean energy at UCL, starting with an M.Sc. in Nanotechnology and finally a Ph.D. in Hydrogen Storage. She ran the Energy Storage Research Network in the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London for four years, facilitating research collaborations in the growing area of energy storage. She is now a Faraday Institution Project Leader in the Mechanical Engineering Dept. of the College, managing a large research consortium on Multiscale Modelling of Li-ion Batteries, as well as a Co-Investigator in the ReLiB project, leading the sustainability modelling work.

Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: Metallurgy and Materials

Specialism: Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: PhD School of Chemistry FT

Specialism: Techno Economic Analysis
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: Metallurgy and Materials

Specialism: Chemical Engineering
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: PhD Dept Metallurgy and Materials FT

Specialism: Electrochemistry
Institution: University of Leicester

Dr Hartley studied for her MChem (2.1) at the University of Leicester from 2005-2009, and then did her PhD with Prof. Abbott from Jan2010-April2013 on the topic of ‘Ionometallurgy: The Processing of Metals Using Ionic Liquids’. She has worked as a PostDoc in the group of Prof. Gero Frisch from September 2013-September 2018 in the Technical University of Freiberg, Germany on a DfG-funded project ‘Designed Redox Properties of Strategically Important Metals Through Ionometallurgy’. Dr Hartley is currently working on the ReLiB project supporting Professor Andy Abbott’s team. Her interests are how redox behaviour in ionic liquids is affected by metal speciation and electrode surface effects.

Specialism: Biotechnology
Institution: University of Edinburgh

Professor Louise Horsfall is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh Biotechnology and Associate Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions. She is a synthetic biologist, working at the interface of biology, chemistry, engineering and social science, and regularly collaborates with industry from new start-ups to large multinationals.

Her research involves the engineering of biological parts, systems and devices to recover metals from contaminated waste, water and land. She uses biology to add value to the recovered metal and to provide a route for its reuse.

Professor Horsfall is a member of the Executive Board of the European Federation of Biotechnology, co-chair of the EFB’s section on Bioengineering and Bioprocessing, the RSE’s Young Academy of Scotland’s theme lead for sustainability and an editor for the Microbiology journal.

Specialism: Characterisation, Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Abbey Jarvis’ research interests include synthesis and characterisation of new materials for energy applications. Previous work includes investigating oxyanion incorporation in perovskite and perovskite type materials for solid oxide fuel cell applications.She joined the Chemistry department as a Research Fellow in February 2020.

Specialism: Chemical Engineering
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: PhD Dept of Chemical Engineering FT

Shiva Jethwa is a PhD student working at the University of Birmingham in the department of Chemical Engineering. His research is to explore new and innovative methods to recover and reprocess the electrolyte material found in Li-ion batteries, used in electric vehicles.

He attained his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sheffield. Prior to starting his PhD research he completed a year with Liberty Speciality Steels, in Sheffield as a Quality Control Placement Engineer working primarily in the area of metallurgical research and development of high-strength steels.

Specialism: Chemical Engineering
Institution: University of Birmingham

Dr Guozhan Jiang’s research interest focuses on waste valorisation by chemical engineering approach. Previous work includes delivery of research in carbon fibre recycling, supercapacitor recycling, lignin thermal transformation, fermentative production of biopolymers, and plastics recycling at various UK universities.  Currently, he is working on ReLib project at the University of Birmingham with Professor Gary Leeke.

Institution: Imperial College London

Specialism: Materials Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: Metallurgy and Materials

Professor Emma Kendrickis a materials chemist whose research focuses on new battery materials and technologies. Prior to joining us, she was Chief Technologist in energy storage at Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd (SLE) where she established the energy storage research and development program in sodium ion batteries and then she moved to WMG where she focused on developing new lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery technologies, that can be manufactured and tested at a scale that is industrially meaningful.

Specialism: Electrochemistry
Institution: University of Leicester

Dr Lei in conducting polymer, worked on research projects related to electrochemistry in a few universities/departments, including nanomaterial processing and characterization; fabrication and analysing of organic photovoltaic solar cells and supercapacitors; electrochemical deposition of semiconductors and metal alloy from ionic liquid electrolytes; scaling up in a pilot trial. Currently working on the ReLiB project in Leicester University.

Specialism: Chemical Engineering
Institution: University of Birmingham

Professor Gary Leeke has over 20 years expertise in resource efficiency and the development of processes to recover, upgrade and remanufacture materials and chemicals.He works at the interface of chemical engineering/chemistry/materials and has expertise in high pressure engineering and thermo-chemical processing, specifically in reaction engineering, separation technology, polymer/composite processing and remanufacture, waste materials and the circular economy. Professor Leeke led the EPSRC funded EXHUME project (EP/K026348/1), investigating the deconstruction of fibre reinforced composite. He currently heads the chemical engineering activities on the Faraday Institution funded Re-Lib project investigating the recycling of lithium ion batteries and three government funded projects (Innovate UK 74000-496338, BEIS Energy Entrepreneur Fund 5 and British Council Institutional Links, 279359364) dealing with the transformation of plastic waste into chemical products.

Specialism: Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Institution: University of Newcastle

Prof Simon Lambert is a member of academic staff in the Electrical Power research group of the School of Engineering at Newcastle University (UK). For over ten years he has worked on the characterisation of electrochemical energy storage systems and electrical integration technologies such as battery management and charger systems.

He has managed research programmes in collaboration with EV OEMs such as Renault, Daimler and Nissan resulting in having developed and fully industrialised, non-destructive testing techniques for quality control and detecting aging mechanisms of Li-ion batteries.

He is currently one of the lead investigators in the Recycling of Lithium-ion batteries project (ReLiB) which is one of four flagship Faraday Institution research programmes in the UK.

WORK STREAM 1: Pack to Cell

Autonomous disassembly with integrated, hierarchical testing

The cost of dismantling and testing can currently account for 60% or more of the EoL value of EV battery packs. Furthermore, the potential for fire, chemical and electrical hazard (especially for older packs of uncertain history or abuse) means that automation is far safer than disassembly by human operatives.

This work stream is dedicated to the development of quick and efficient automated disassembly of full vehicle packs and integrated hierarchical testing. The work stream ethos assumes that a decision has already been made at the vehicle or pack level that the pack in its entirety cannot be used for second life as it is and must be disassembled, either fully for recycle or partly to recover any reusable modules. The WP is framed around the UoB robotic facility at Tyseley and aims to deliver a largely autonomous disassembly line representing the ReLiB process from pack to cell scale. The process also includes a hierarchical, multi-scale, multi-metrology testing regime at strategically important points during the disassembly process.

The robotics team at Birmingham will use the robotic facilities installed at Tyseley to develop automated disassembly operations at multiple scales. The team at Newcastle will support automation of dismantling, including integration of required testing. They will also support materials flow and access to materials from used battery packs, and build on work to cross-reference non-destructive and post-teardown characterization of cells. At pack level, automation will continue to focus on the mechanics of disassembly, while module and cell level dismantling will aim to integrate advanced electrical, thermal, acoustic and XRD metrology to ensure safety. UCL will join as a new partner in the project to develop a library of X-ray CT scans of different cells with the aim of developing automated image collection, digital disassembly protocols, and an autonomous an in-line testing process for assessing the safety of cells during automated dismantling

Specialism: Biotechnology
Institution: University of Edinburgh

Giovanni Maddalena completed his MRes in Synthetic Biology at University College London where he worked on developing a novel biomaterial. He is now working at the University of Edinburgh on developing a bio-based platform to recycle Lithium-ion Batteries. Beyond the lab, he takes interest in entrepreneurship and science communication.

Institution: University of Birmingham

Nathalie Madoc -Project Administrator is developing and implementing the communication strategy which includes social media management. She also coordinates events and meetings organisations and supports the project management team.

Institution: University of Newcastle

Specialism: Electrochemistry & Nanotechnology
Institution: University of Birmingham

Department: Chemistry

Dr. Milon Miah works as a Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, within the Prof. Peter Slater Group. 

He graduated from Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur, India and completed his Ph.D. from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India. During his Ph.D. study, the main research topic was the charge transport and electrochemical properties of graphene-based energy storage materials.  In 2021, he joined the Centre for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research at the University of Birmingham as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, started his research in low temperature fuel cells (PEMFC, DMFC). His research interest lies in enhancing performance of energy storage devices such as lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors and advanced batteries with the help of multifunctional nanoscale materials.

Specialism: Mechanical Engineering
Institution: Newcastle University

Dr Milojevic obtained his MSc in Mechanical Engineering and Automatic Control in 1995 at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad (Serbia), where he also finished his Magister and PhD studies in 2002 and 2008 respectively. He became a Full Professor in 2018 at the University of Novi Sad.

Since October 2018 he has been employed by Newcastle University where he works as a Senior Research Associate on the ReLib Project.
Dr Milojevic’s interests lie within fields of LiB’s thermal behaviour FEA modelling, ununiformed ageing of the LiBs from EV battery packs and LiB safety.

Specialism: Robotics
Institution: University of Birmingham
Department: Metallurgy and Materials

Dr Alireza Rastegarpanah is an interdisciplinary engineer with diverse research interests, although his research interest broadly centres on robotics, physical human-robot interaction and cooperation and robotic manipulation. After receiving his PhD in robotics, he pursued his research interests by joining the Extreme Robotics Laboratory (ERL), as Research Fellow, in 2016.

He worked on an EPSRC project called “Machine-learning of vision-guided bi-manual grasps, for adaptable autonomous manipulation in manufacturing environments”. Dr Rastegarpanah started his collaboration, as a research associate, with the Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology at UCL and Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in 2017.

He re-joined ERL as a research fellow in 2018 and started working on another industrial project called “Recycling of Lithium-Ion Batteries (RELIB)”. He is currently doing research on using robotic systems to cut individual battery modules and disassemble at cell level.

Specialism: Materials Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Daniel Reed is a lecturer in materials chemistry in the School of Metallurgy and Materials, and Director of the EPS Foundation Year. His research interests lie in the area of energy storage materials, focused on increasing the safety and anode capacity of Li- and Na-ion batteries. He works on the design, synthesis and characterisation of new materials, phases and composites. Daniel has expertise in variable temperature, pressure and position in situ measurement techniques using x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy.

Specialism: Physical Chemistry
Institution: University of Leicester

Professor Karl Ryder is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leicester. Professor Ryder specialises in the applied study of electrodynamics and nucleation/growth processes at electrified interfaces of metals and other polymer based materials in novel ionic liquid solvents.

His research interests include electrochemical deposition and dissolution processes, surfaces and interfacial structure.

Specialism: Developing novel binders
Institution: University of Leicester

Dr Sean Scott completed his MChem (2:1) at the University of Leicester from 2015-2019. In his final year project he looked at the dissolution of metals from chromite and manganese ores using deep eutectic solvents, providing him with experience in material characterisation and electrochemistry.

Currently, he is working on a ReLiB PhD with Prof. Ryder and Prof. Abbott on the topic of ‘Alternative Binders to simplify the recycling of lithium ion batteries’. This aims to develop electrode materials, which are designed to be recycled through the use of alternative binders, which possess inherent flaws that can be exploited at the end of life.

Specialism: Chemistry
Institution: University of Oxford

Paul Shearing is a Professor in Chemical Engineering at University of Oxford where he holds The Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Battery Technologies. His research interests cover a broad range of electrochemical engineering themes with a particular interest in the relationship between performance and microstructure for energy materials.

He co-directs UCL’s Electrochemical Innovation lab and leads the UK STFC Global Challenge Network in Batteries and Electrochemical Devices. He was a founding investigator of the UK’s Faraday Institution, where he chairs the Training & Diversity Panel and is PI of the LiSTAR programme investigating Li-Sulfur battery technologies.

Specialism: Chemistry
Institution: University of Birmingham

Professor Peter Slater has more than 25 years research experience in the area of solid state/materials chemistry, ranging from battery materials to fuel cells.

In these areas he has published more than 200 papers in scientific journals, and has written more than 15 invited review articles. His present research is focusing mainly on the development of novel ionic and mixed conductors for energy storage and conversion applications (e.g. Li/Na ion batteries and solid oxide fuel cells), including the use of novel doping strategies to stabilize new systems/improve materials performance.

Specialism: Minerals Engineering, Physical Separation
Institution: University of Birmingham

Rob Sommerville is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with a focus on reutilisation of waste and the circular economy of critical materials in Li-ion Batteries. He is currently a Faraday Institution Research Fellow working on the ReLiB, investigating physical separation techniques in the recycling of Li-ion batteries, and a Researcher Co-Investigator on REBLEND. Rob studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, gaining Masters Degrees in 2011 and 2012, and a PhD in 2017. Rob worked at the University of Warwick for a year on Lithium-ion battery recycling under Professor Emma Kendrick, before returning to Birmingham to join ReLiB.