After a year of preparation for our battery manufacturing facility here at the university of Bath, our group finally installed our first glovebox over the summer of 2021. Due to the pandemic, this made the process of setting it up more time consuming and arduous. Nevertheless, this gave us ample time to get to grips with the different operating procedures and working processes that would be required for this system. This is a vital part of setting up as we have to make sure that all the risks are minimised as much as possible before working in the lab is made possible. This includes training on the equipment and safety training. Although this was not direct work relating to my PhD, it was incredibly useful to see what types of tasks have to be completed when constructing a laboratory. Now we have the system is up and running, the team can prepare samples and continue their research in person.

AB Dynamics is one of the world’s leading specialists in automotive test systems across a wide range of applications, from validation and durability to the development of advanced technologies for active safety and autonomous driving. As part of the MRes year for Cohort 1 we had the opportunity to visit. During our visit, we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to partake in a demonstration in their in-house Advanced Vehicle Driving Simulator (aVDS).for a closer look at safety and autonomous driving and virtually drive a range of vehicles.

Attended MCT Reman and Aspire Engineering as part of the CDT in 2020 and learned a significant amount on sustainable engineering

I went to the Diamond Lightsource synchrotron with Rob in Didcot to help Dr. Alexander Lunt and researcher Sophie Wilson with an experiment using tomography to investigate shaped carbon fibre strands with different vacancies between the individual fibres cope under stress. As I am planning on conducting my own experiments at this facility during my PhD, this trip enabled me to learn more about the equipment used inside a synchrotron as this is a highly technical system. It allowed me to get used to the campus and understand the importance of teamwork when working on a research topic such as this as the experiments can last several days as we will rely on each other to make sure we succeed.

Rob and I travelled to Sweden during our MRes year with the CDT to meet up with research groups from Chalmers University in Gothenburg and KTH University in Stockholm. These groups were researching the similar materials for battery applications to us, making it a great place for interesting and constructive discussion on the possible opportunities our research could go. It was also a great chance for us to visit their labs to see what type of equipment they were using and how they were using it, as we were planning to set up our own battery research laboratory here at Bath. This was a great opportunity to not only go to a country that I have never been to before but to also get to learn more about our subject matter and meet top academics in this field.

During the first semester of the MRes year, we were tasked with evaluating the hybrid powertrain of the Toyota Pruis. During this time, we had the opportunity to gather some invaluable vehicle driving data from the chassis dyno at the University of Bath. This allowed us the test the performance of the vehicle over a range of different temperatures and vehicle modes over a variety of drive cycles, whilst also gaining an insight into the setup and operation required for these kinds of on-vehicle tests.

WMG is a hub of collaboration between academia and industry, driving innovation in applied science, technology and engineering. This provided an excellent insight into the potential that academic-industrial collaboration has within the automotive sector. During our visit, we were fortunate enough to tour the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) – a national facility for all aspects of battery research, from materials and electrochemistry through to application integration and recycling. During our trip in the MRes year we were able to witness first-hand the cutting-edge research and world leading facilities at the EIC.