SUNY Oswego professor gets more funding for battery research

OSWEGO — A SUNY Oswego physics professor will continue his research on lithium-ion batteries with grant funding of $15,000.

The Syracuse Center of Excellence (CoE) in Environmental Energy Systems awarded the funding for Mohammad Islam’s work. The effort seeks to improve the range of lithium-ion batteries, so electric cars can “better compete with gas-powered vehicles,” SUNY Oswego said in its news release.

SyracuseCoE, located at 727 E. Washington St. in Syracuse, focuses on research pertaining to water, environment, and energy. 

SyracuseCoE also awarded Islam a grant in 2020 to develop new batteries for electric vehicles that ran on sodium, or salt, which can be extracted from the ocean. In the U.S., the material is more accessible than lithium, SUNY Oswego said. However, Islam has now shifted his focus to improving the existing lithium-ion technology.

“The previous 2021-2022 research on sodium-ion batteries was a new technology, and hopefully that can develop further later on into a market technology, but this year’s 2023 Syracuse CoE grant that I received is basically falling back onto lithium-ion batteries because of the urgency,” Islam said in the release. 

Lithium-ion batteries are found in many everyday products, such as electric cars, cell phones, and laptops. However, their battery life makes long-term use, like on a road trip, challenging, the school said.

“If you’ve ever driven an electric car, they have a short range,” Islam said. “Most electric cars are hybrid cars, so they run on gas and electric, and the car decides when to go from electric to gas. The ranges are somewhere between 200 to 250 miles with a fully charged battery. That’s less than from [Oswego] to New York City.”

Islam worked with one SUNY Oswego physics student, Joel Turallo, on this research project throughout the summer, and that will continue through the fall 2023 and spring 2024 semesters.

“I do feel good about research, and research is something you do because you enjoy it, but at the same time I feel a responsibility to our students, especially physics students,” Islam said.

Research developments

Since receiving his initial Syracuse CoE grant in 2020, Islam and his research team have had “groundbreaking discoveries that could change the way the world gets its power,” SUNY Oswego said.

One of the major developments in his latest research into lithium-ion batteries is replacing the positive terminal, or anode, of the battery with a more sustainable material. 

“We are replacing the graphite anode with silicon anode,” Islam explained. “Silicon is a material that is found everywhere. The sand in sea beaches is basically silicon that can be purified. It’s a material that has been used everywhere… We’ve known a lot about silicon for the past forty years because that’s how computer chips were developed.”

Not only is silicon a more readily available material, but Islam also believes it will “significantly outperform” traditional graphite anodes.

“The good thing about a silicon anode is that, theoretically, its capacity is ten times that of a graphite anode,” Islam noted.

Impacts of the research

When asked about why the public should care about his research, Islam says electric cars are “here to stay, whether people want them or not,” per the SUNY Oswego release. He went on to say this new technology will “not only help the environment but people’s bank accounts as well.”

“Even if you don’t care about the environment, the amount of gas available under the earth is shrinking,” Islam said. “The less amount of gas available under the earth, the harder it gets to extract it, which means the price is going to be transferred onto you and me as consumers. The only way to mitigate this imminent threat to both our pocketbook and our environment is to move on to renewable energy technology.”