A leading researcher of lithium-ion batteries has won the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering.
The award is presented by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), along with several other honours. The
recipients were announced Tuesday.
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Working now in collaboration with electric car company Tesla, Dahn aims to make a battery that lasts 30 years.
In his lab at the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Dahn works with about 25 people: undergraduate assistants, graduates and post-doctorates. The 5,000-square-foot laboratory is loud with activity, machines humming relentlessly in the background.
Green tech
While existing lithium-ion batteries are quite efficient, Dahn is looking at the bigger picture — the future of our planet.
As the world attempts to turn to green technology, there is an increasing need for better, more efficient storage. And that's where Dahn comes in.
"No matter what electric chemical energy storage technology you pick… they have to last many decades to be viable for our planet," Dahn told CBC News. "Germany has said that by 2050 they're going be 100 per cent renewable. Well, how are they going to do it? How are they going to use solar and wind and storage to do it?"
Dahn's research focuses on "unwanted parasitic reactions," the process which reduces battery life.
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Tesla partnership
In 2016, electric car giant Tesla Motors created a five-year partnership with NSERC and Dalhousie University, forming the NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair, headed by Dahn. This is Dahn's second chair: he held the NSERC/3M Canada Industrial Research Chair in Materials for Advanced Batteries at the university from 1996 to 2016.
Tesla is at the forefront of grid-energy and electric vehicle research and it is the first time the company has partnered with a university researcher.
For Dahn, it's a perfect partnership. He believes the world needs to shift to renewable energy technology, a view also held by Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk.
"At this moment, we've been working with Tesla only for six months so far, and none of our research has made it into their products yet, but I'm quite confident that our work will be incorporated in their products going forward, and that's pretty exciting for us."
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