Raman spectroscopy and molecular-dynamics simulations identify FEC as the principal additive. It decreases Na⁺–EC coordination and, in the dual-additive electrolyte, promotes relatively greater ClO₄⁻ participation in the first solvation shell. Under the conditions examined, trace NaF has only a modest effect on homogeneous bulk solvation and is treated as a secondary co-additive.
The dual-additive formulation shows limited impedance growth, relatively balanced apparent Na⁺ transport during insertion and extraction, and largely reversible evolution of the tunnel framework by in situ synchrotron XRD.
Na‖NMO cells retain 95.6% of their cycle-2 capacity after 150 cycles at 1C. This is essentially the same as the FEC-only formulation (95.9%), but higher than NaF-only (74.3%) and baseline (66.6%) electrolytes. An NMO‖hard-carbon full cell retains 88.2% after 130 cycles at 1C and reaches an average Coulombic efficiency of 99.84% over cycles 2–187.
The interpretation remains deliberately bounded: the dissolved state of nominally added NaF was not quantified, direct Na–F coordination was not established, and the measurements do not determine a unique molecular interphase mechanism. The strongest conclusion is therefore formulation-level—FEC drives the measurable solvation change, while trace NaF provides a modest complementary contribution.
Weldegebrieal G. K., Kao-ian W., Gopalakrishnan M., Limphirat W., Buangam P., Zhang R., Liu W.-R., Kheawhom S. Anion-enriched Na⁺ solvation enabled by FEC and trace NaF for stable cycling of tunnel-type Na₀.₄₄MnO₂ cathodes. Journal of Energy Storage 181 (2026) 124418. DOI 10.1016/j.est.2026.124418
]]>The article reframes recycling around a single question — how much functional order survives the route — and builds three linked ideas on it:
Framed this way, order retention becomes a green-chemistry design metric: shallow-reset routes that stay within the repair window curtail reagent, energy, water, and fluorinated-emission burdens, whereas deeper resets trade robustness for environmental cost.
Eeamtak S., Tamwattana O., Kasemchainan J., Pornprasertsuk R., Noerochim L., Watanabe T., Weng J., Mohamad A.A., Zhang Y., Kheawhom S. Beyond Metal Recovery in Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling: Order Retention as a Sustainability Framework from Pack Disassembly to Interphase Chemistry. Green Chemistry (2026), Advance Article. DOI 10.1039/D6GC03171D
]]>The article reframes Na-ion interphase design around three linked ideas:
The discussion is anchored in deployment-relevant markers — a representative hard-carbon full-cell initial coulombic efficiency near 91.4%, a reported optimal N/P of about 0.9 in a layered-oxide/hard-carbon pairing, and emerging 1.5 and 3.5 Ah cylindrical Na-ion formats — and closes with a co-design logic and benchmarking checklist for Na-ion full-cell interphase studies.
Wisan T., Tangthuam P., Chang S.-H., Chou H.-H., Lin J.-Y., In I., Kheawhom S. Beyond the Lithium Template: A Solvation-First Framework for Nanoscale Sodium-Ion Interphases, Cross-Talk, and Full-Cell Translation. Nanoscale Horizons (2026), Advance Article, published online 25 August 2026. DOI 10.1039/D6NH00245E
]]>The article connects three questions that should be answered together:
This framing shifts electrode evaluation away from a single beginning-of-life performance number. A treatment is useful only when its benefit survives operation, its degradation mechanism is identified, and the evidence is strong enough for comparison across laboratories.
Sondit I., Tangthuam P., Chotigkrai N., An T. K., In I., Liu W.-R., Mohamad A. A., Tantaobharse V., Kheawhom S. Durability-first engineering of carbon felt electrodes for aqueous redox flow batteries: Failure modes, stress tests, and evidence standards. Journal of Power Sources 694 (2026) 241310. DOI 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2026.241310
Free full-text access until 10 October 2026: Elsevier Share Link
]]>Not because they were scientists.
Some were philosophers.
Some were teachers.
Some were psychologists.
Some lived more than two thousand years ago.
Yet each seemed to illuminate a different dimension of scientific life.
Carl Jung reminded us to ask, Who am I becoming?
Marcus Aurelius reminded us to distinguish between our duty and our outcomes.
The Buddha reminded us to notice what we have become attached to.
Karl Popper reminded us that good science advances by inviting the possibility that we are wrong.
Richard Feynman warned us that the easiest person to deceive is ourselves.
Thomas Kuhn challenged us to examine the assumptions hidden within our own way of thinking.
Socrates reminded us that every new discovery reveals an even larger frontier of the unknown.
Viktor Frankl asked us to remember why we chose this path in the first place.
Seneca reminded us that a scientific career is ultimately measured in the moments to which we give our lives.
And Confucius reminded us that our greatest legacy may not be the papers we publish, but the people we help grow.
At first glance, these ideas seem unrelated.
But together they tell a surprisingly coherent story.
A research career is not only an intellectual journey.
It is also a human one.
We learn how to think.
We learn how to doubt.
We learn how to let go.
We learn how to question ourselves.
We learn how to find meaning.
We learn how to use our limited time wisely.
And eventually, we learn that knowledge reaches its highest purpose when it is passed on to others.
Publications matter.
Citations matter.
The H-index matters.
Grants, awards, and professional recognition all matter.
They shape careers, create opportunities, and help good ideas reach the scientific community.
But perhaps they answer only one question:
What have we achieved?
The deeper questions remain.
What kind of person has this journey shaped us into?
What habits of mind have we developed?
What values will remain when today’s metrics have become tomorrow’s history?
Perhaps becoming a better researcher has never been only about learning more science.
Perhaps it has always been about becoming a wiser human being.
If these reflections have resonated with you, then they have already achieved more than I hoped.
Thank you for reading, for thinking, and for walking this journey with me.
The conversation continues.
]]>Prof. Lin leads the Laboratory of Interfacial Electrochemistry. His research spans metal-ion batteries, supercapacitors, electrocatalysts, and electrochemical biosensors. The visit provided a welcome opportunity to exchange ideas around our shared interests in electrochemical energy storage and conversion and to strengthen academic links between our groups.
The work couples bismuth ferrite with Ta₂O₅ and follows Fe and Ta under operating conditions. Diffraction, spectroscopy, and microscopy confirm direct contact between the two oxide phases, while impedance resolves Maxwell-Wagner interfacial polarization.
After all seventeen operando Fe K-edge spectra are placed on a common normalization, no change in the bulk-averaged Fe oxidation state is resolved. The reversible component is bounded at less than 1.4% of the charge stored in one cycle across the illuminated volume.
This does not exclude Fe redox confined to the particle surface. XPS resolves mixed Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ character, so near-surface Fe redox remains consistent with the evidence, but operando XAS does not demonstrate it directly.
At the Ta L₃-edge, Ta remains at the Ta⁵⁺ end of the reference interval and its first Ta-O shell is unchanged. No Ta-centred redox transformation is therefore assigned; Ta₂O₅ is instead treated as an interfacial and polarization component.
The mechanism is bounded by measurement, not asserted from performance.
The composite delivers 156 F g⁻¹ at 1 mV s⁻¹. A symmetric device reaches 34 Wh kg⁻¹ at 558 W kg⁻¹ and retains 82% of its capacitance after 10,000 cycles.
The interpretation remains deliberately limited: dielectric response and electrochemical kinetics are measured over different length scales, and bulk-averaged XAS cannot isolate a surface-confined reaction. Within those bounds, the work supports a practical principle—pair a redox-active perovskite with a high-permittivity insulator, then verify their division of labour spectroscopically rather than inferring it from performance.
Selvaraj Y., Nangan S., Gopalakrishnan M., Venkattappan A., Eswaramoorthy N., Kao-ian W., Limphirat W., Yu S.-H., Kheawhom S. Coupled dielectric polarization and Fe redox charge storage in Ta₂O₅/bismuth ferrite heterostructures for aqueous supercapacitors. Journal of Alloys and Compounds (2026) 190516. DOI 10.1016/j.jallcom.2026.190516
]]>He spent far more time asking how they could become better.
Not only better scholars.
Better human beings.
Reading his teachings, I sometimes wonder what he might say to a professor.
Perhaps he would not ask about publications.
Or citations.
Or awards.
Perhaps he would ask a quieter question.
Who will grow because you were here?
It is a different way of measuring an academic life.
Universities celebrate many achievements.
Papers published.
Grants awarded.
Students graduated.
Rankings improved.
These accomplishments matter.
They advance knowledge and strengthen institutions.
But they are only part of a professor’s contribution.
Every lecture shapes the way someone thinks.
Every conversation encourages—or discourages—a young researcher.
Every piece of thoughtful feedback helps someone take the next step.
Many of these moments will never appear on a curriculum vitae.
Yet they may become our most enduring work.
Knowledge is not diminished by being shared.
It grows.
Perhaps this is why teaching has always been more than the transfer of information.
It is the cultivation of judgment.
Curiosity.
Integrity.
The confidence to ask difficult questions.
And the humility to change one’s mind when the evidence demands it.
A professor’s influence is rarely measured at the moment it is given.
Sometimes its true value becomes visible years later.
In a former student who mentors others with the same generosity.
In a young researcher who learns to value truth over recognition.
In a future discovery made possible because someone once took the time to teach patiently.
Confucius understood that education is never only about knowledge.
It is about character.
The facts we teach today may eventually be revised.
The habits of mind we help cultivate may last a lifetime.
Perhaps this is the quiet privilege of being a professor.
We contribute not only to the literature.
We contribute to the people who will write the next chapters of that literature.
Every morning, a professor should ask one simple question:
Who will become a better scholar—and a better person—because of something I do today?
Perhaps the most lasting measure of an academic career is not the papers we leave behind.
Perhaps it is the people who continue to learn, teach, and inspire long after we are gone.
]]>It is that we waste much of it.
Nearly two thousand years later, his words still feel uncomfortably familiar.
Especially in academia.
Researchers rarely complain about a lack of intelligence.
Or curiosity.
Or ideas.
We complain about a lack of time.
There is always another email.
Another committee meeting.
Another proposal.
Another manuscript to review.
Another administrative task that seems impossible to postpone.
Days become weeks.
Weeks become years.
And one day we realize that we have spent much of our career responding to urgency rather than pursuing importance.
Seneca would probably ask a simple question.
What are you spending your life on?
Not your calendar.
Your life.
The two are not always the same.
Busyness can easily become a substitute for progress.
A full schedule can create the comforting illusion that meaningful work is being done.
Yet activity and contribution are not synonymous.
The most important ideas rarely emerge between meetings.
They require uninterrupted time.
Quiet reflection.
Careful reading.
Patient thinking.
The kind of work that often leaves nothing visible on today’s to-do list.
Science has always demanded more than productivity.
It demands attention.
Attention to unexpected observations.
Attention to inconvenient results.
Attention to questions that refuse simple answers.
Perhaps the greatest resource in research is not funding.
Nor equipment.
Nor even talent.
It is sustained attention directed toward a worthwhile question.
Seneca reminds us that time is more than a resource to be managed.
It is the substance from which a life is made.
Every hour we spend is an hour we can never recover.
That realization is not meant to create anxiety.
It is meant to sharpen intention.
To ask not whether we are busy.
But whether we are becoming the kind of researcher we hoped to become.
Every morning, a researcher should ask one simple question:
If today were one page in the story of my scientific life, would it be worth keeping?
Perhaps the measure of a scientific career is not how full our days have been.
Perhaps it is whether we gave our best time to the questions that mattered most.
]]>A lithium ion carries a charge of +1. A sodium ion does too. Magnesium and zinc both carry +2. It is tempting to think that ionic charge and size should tell us how these ions behave in an electrolyte.
They do not.
Consider Mg²⁺ and Zn²⁺. Both are divalent, and their ionic sizes are comparable. Yet their electrochemical behavior can be remarkably different. Mg²⁺ strongly binds its surrounding ligands and often pays a substantial energetic and kinetic penalty when its coordination shell must reorganize near an electrode. Zn²⁺, in contrast, can access a wider range of coordination environments, with water, anions, and additives competing to define the species that actually reaches the interface.
The difference is not simply charge. It is coordination chemistry.
When we write an electrochemical reaction as
the notation hides much of the chemistry.
In an electrolyte, the reacting species is rarely a bare Mz+. It exists within a local coordination environment containing solvent molecules, anions, and sometimes specifically designed ligands or additives.
A more realistic starting point is therefore something like
and x and y are not merely structural details. They influence how the ion moves, how easily its coordination shell can reorganize, what reaches the electrode surface, and what ultimately reacts there.
Across common battery charge carriers, coordination behavior changes substantially.
Li⁺ is small and forms a compact solvation environment, commonly dominated by oxygen donors. Na⁺ is larger and generally supports a more flexible coordination shell with higher coordination numbers.
Moving to divalent ions changes the problem. Mg²⁺ combines small size with +2 charge, producing strong interactions with surrounding ligands and a relatively persistent first coordination shell. This can make coordination-shell reorganization and desolvation major kinetic barriers.
Zn²⁺ provides an instructive counterexample. It has the same formal charge as Mg²⁺, but its coordination landscape is considerably more diverse. Coordination numbers and geometries can change with solvent, anion, concentration, and additives. For Zn electrochemistry, controlling which species exists can therefore be as important as controlling how fast that species moves.
Al³⁺ takes the trend further. Its high charge density strongly polarizes coordinated molecules. In water, coordination is no longer merely a question of solvation: it can drive hydrolysis and change the chemical identity of the species itself.
These comparisons suggest that ionic charge and radius are useful starting descriptors, but not sufficient ones.
Even coordination number does not tell the complete story.
Two ions may both have six coordinating oxygen atoms and still behave very differently. We also need to ask:
This distinction is important because
The relevant quantity is therefore not a single coordination structure, but a coordination landscape: the accessible structures, their relative free energies, and the pathways connecting them.
This leads to a causal sequence:
The first coordination shell determines what the ion carries with it through the electrolyte. Transport determines how that coordinated species reaches the interface. Near the electrode, the coordination environment must reorganize again before electron transfer, insertion, or metal deposition can occur.
The species observed in the bulk electrolyte is therefore not necessarily the species that reacts at the electrode.
That distinction matters.
An electrolyte can have high ionic conductivity while presenting an unfavorable coordination environment for interfacial charge transfer. Conversely, modifying an anion or adding a ligand may improve electrochemical reversibility even when bulk conductivity decreases.
The fastest electrolyte is not necessarily the best electrolyte.
This is why we place Coordination at the beginning of our Coordination–Transport–Interface (CTI) framework.
Coordination asks what chemical state the charge carrier actually occupies.
Transport asks how that state moves and evolves through the electrolyte.
Interface asks what remains of that coordination environment when the ion encounters an electrode and undergoes electrochemical transformation.
Li⁺, Na⁺, Mg²⁺, Zn²⁺, and Al³⁺ provide different answers to these questions. Comparing them may reveal something more general than the behavior of any individual battery chemistry.
It may reveal why an ion’s electrochemical identity is determined not only by what it is, but also by what it is coordinated to.
]]>