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Geoffrey Moorhouse Gibson Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
In addition to her role at the University of Cambridge, Professor Clare Grey is Professor of Chemistry and Associate Director of The Northeastern Centre for Chemical Energy Storage at Stony Brook University, New York.
Her current research on materials chemistry uses a wide range of techniques, including Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and diffraction, to investigate the local structure and function of materials and to investigate the roles that these play in controlling the physical properties of technologically important, but disordered materials.
Another major area of her research is the development of rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries known as LIBs. New batteries are required for transport applications and for storage and load-leveling on the electrical grid. These batteries should be capable of being charged and discharged faster, and should store much more power, than the batteries currently available. To this end, her research team is probing the mechanisms for lithium insertion and extraction and investigating the effect of local structure and electronic properties on LIB battery performance.
As a result they have developed NMR methodology to monitor structural changes that occur during the operation of a battery. These in-situ NMR studies allow them to, for example, capture metastable phases, follow reactions between the electrolyte and the electrode materials and to investigate the effect of rapid charging and cycling of the battery.
Professor Clare Grey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society & Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in 2011.
