Kaner group researcher Dr. Maher El-Kady (Ph.D. ’13) is featured in a new short film from the Chemistry Shorts series titled Energy to Spare: Building Better Batteries. The seven-minute film highlights El-Kady’s work on next-generation battery technology, specifically zinc-ion batteries, as a safer and more sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Chemistry graduate students from the Kaner group also appear in the film.
El-Kady, who received his Ph.D. in chemistry from UCLA in 2013 with Professor Richard Kaner, is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Nanotech Energy and a researcher in the Kaner group at UCLA. Kaner, El-Kady, and physician-entrepreneur Dr. Jack Kavanaugh founded Nanotech Energy in 2014 with the goal of taking their cutting-edge research on graphene-based energy storage devices from the laboratory to the marketplace. He has received several awards for his groundbreaking research.
Several Kaner group chemistry graduate students also appear in the film: Gray Carson, Isabelle Davis, Puyuan Du, Bradley Kroes, Haemin (Joanne) Oh, and Zhiyin (Tara) Yang. The film uses exploding batteries, bowling showdowns, and electrifying animations to provide a primer on how batteries work and explore how scientists are revolutionizing battery technology for the renewable energy age.
Current technology relies heavily on lithium-ion batteries, which are in everything from electric vehicles to laptops to cellphones. But lithium is rare, which can make it expensive, and mining it can take a toll on local communities. Lithium-ion batteries are also prone to catching on fire, making them a safety risk.
In the film El-Kady describes his work on one promising solution: zinc-ion batteries. These batteries have many advantages over lithium-ion batteries. They use water instead of toxic solvents, are much safer, and have the potential to store more energy. Zinc is also far more common on our planet, making it cheaper and more environmentally-friendly. This new science could help us leave lithium-ion batteries in the gutter, rolling towards better batteries and a more sustainable future.
“In batteries, there is always some type of chemical reactions that are happening. It’s the chemists that can actually understand that and perfect those reactions, developing new materials that can make a better battery for the future.”
– Dr. Maher El-Kady in “Energy to Spare.”
“Energy to Spare” is targeted towards high school and college students and can be used as a starting point for discussions around battery function and composition, sustainable chemistry, renewable energy, electricity, and more.
The Chemistry Shorts free-to-watch film series, supported by the Dreyfus Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, showcases groundbreaking research in the chemical sciences and its impact on society. The series has previously featured the work of leading scientists from Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, UC Berkeley, and other top institutions. Each film is accompanied by a lesson plan to integrate the science behind these innovations into the classroom.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
