Mason Scientist receives NSF funding for collaborative research on redox flow batteries

Chao Luo, Assistant Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for the project: "Collaborative Research: Catholyte Molecular Design For Non-Aqueous Mg-Organic Hybrid Redox Flow Batteries."

Luo is proposing a new organic molecule structure design concept for redox flow batteries, which are promising for grid-scale energy storage. The research outcomes will afford low-cost, abundant, sustainable, and high-performance organic catholyte materials for non-aqueous Mg-organic hybrid redox flow batteries. 

His goal is to design, synthesize, and characterize core-shell structured organic molecules at both the molecular level and device-level, to gain a fundamental understanding of the structure-property-performance relationship of the core-shell structured organic molecules. He also aims to leverage this understanding for designing novel organic catholytes. Additionally, he plans to realize a transformative open simple protocol for remote access to graphical user interfaces that can be used for future energy storage applications.

Luo will receive $260,000 from NSF for this project. Funding will begin in July 2023 and will end in June 2026.