Make lithium-ion batteries smaller. Make lithium-ion batteries thinner.

Scientific research is sometimes simple and not as sophisticated as everyone thinks. What scientists need to do is to discover the real academic problems in daily life and "break through the window" to open a window and see the further scenery.

In April, Fang Fei, the jellyfish on campus rushed to bloom, and Yangquanhong, a professor at the Institute of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University and a winner of the National Outstanding Youth Science Fund, welcomed the flowering of scientific research like flowers.

Recently, his three papers were published in the leading energy journal Advanced Energy Materials. As early as January this year, he first proposed the "sulfur template method" to make it possible for lithium-ion batteries to shrink. The results were published online in the journal Nature Communications.

"This is only a small step. On April 12, Yangquanhong accepted an interview with a reporter from the Science and Technology Daily. Talking about his own research results, Yangquanhong seems low-key and pragmatic. Behind the plain, is the "carbon" researcher's more than 20 years of persistence and dedication.

1, into the field of energy storage, a number of studies have been internationally recognized

Competence is the first impression Yangquanhong gave. The 45-year-old professor focused his research on carbon nanomaterials and new battery materials. After graduating from the Department of Applied Chemistry of Tianjin University in 1994, Yangquanhong entered the Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to complete the study of Master's and doctoral stages. That is, during his studies, he began to come into contact with carbon materials and became obsessed with them.

Since then, from the Institute of Metals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the French Research Center, the Northeastern University of Japan and the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, he returned to his alma mater, Tianjin University, to establish his own research team in 2006. He never left the "carbon" that fascinated him. Almost all the energy and enthusiasm has been invested in the design of high-volume energy density energy storage devices and carbon electrode materials, and a series of key technological breakthroughs have been made in the application of graphene dense energy storage. These results are expected to make electronic products such as mobile phones and laptops lighter and thinner.

In order to obtain smaller and higher-capacity energy storage devices, his team proposed the design principles of high-volume energy density energy storage devices from five aspects: strategy, methods, materials, electrodes, and devices, and laid the foundation for the practicality of carbon nanomaterials. The application of new electrochemical energy storage devices based on carbon nanomaterials is advanced. These research results have been published in important international academic journals and have been recognized by the industry.

2, take the "close to the ground" line, draw results on the poster

"Basic research can produce useful results and can also tell interesting stories. "This is a sentence that Yangquanhong often hangs on his lips.

As early as 2015, Yangquanhong was invited to publish a popular science article in the People's Daily entitled "How to Dream Into Reality," introducing the application prospects and industrialization of graphene.

In Yangquanhong's view, scientific research is sometimes simple and not as sophisticated as everyone thinks. What scientists need to do is to discover the real academic problems in daily life and "break through the window" to open a window and see the further scenery.

"Relying to the Ground" is a major feature of Yangquanhong's scientific research work. In the corridor of the team lab, there are two posters designed by Yangquanhong's own hand. Two pictures are particularly vivid.

One of the images shows the fresh process of corn, popcorn and compressed biscuits, from corn to popcorn to compressed biscuits, and is used by Yangquanhong as a metaphor for his two representative results: graphene low-temperature negative compression cleavage technology and graphene hydrogel compact contraction technology. In another picture, Yangquanhong draws the design process of the conductive model of the conductor from a bowl of "soup" to a bowl of "noodle soup."

In Yangquanhong's view, taking the "ground to earth" route will not only make scientific research more interesting, but also allow the team to gain more.

After the results were released, Yangquanhong also became more busy. He was invited to go to various places to make reports. At the same time, he also spread the "atmosphere" of scientific research to more people.

For the future, Yang Quanhong hopes that graphene research can do the "doing bad" and "can't do" things in carbon materials. It is necessary to solve the application bottleneck that traditional carbon materials cannot solve, and to find the killer-level application of graphene.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.