2024 Charles Hatchett Award winners announced

The 2024 edition of the Charles Hatchett Award, recognizing the best paper on the science and technology of Niobium-based materials, has been awarded to a team of researchers — Pete Barnes, Claire Xiong, Yunxing Zuo, Kiev Dixon, Dewen Hou, Sungsik Lee, Zhiyuan Ma, Justin G. Connell, Hua Zhou, Changjian Deng, Kassiopeia Smith, Eric Gabriel, Yuzi Liu, Olivia O. Maryon, Paul H. Davis, Haoyu Zhu, Yingge Du, Ji Qi, Zhuoying Zhu, Chi Chen, Zihua Zhu, Yadong Zhou, Paul J. Simmonds, Ariel E. Briggs, Darin Schwartz, Shyue Ping Ong and Hui Xiong for their paper:

'Electrochemically induced amorphous-to-rock-salt phase
transformation in Niobium oxide electrode for Li-ion batteries'
Nature Materials 21, 795–803 (2022)

Advancements in Li-ion batteries

With the demand for lithium-ion batteries projected to grow exponentially in the next decade, new materials and electrode chemistries will be essential to improving performance and meeting market needs.

Electric mobility, for instance, drives this growth with next-generation ceramic materials offering solutions to safety concerns, such as thermal runaway, while enabling faster charging, longer durability, and higher voltage capacity.

For this reason, solid-state batteries have become a dominant topic for researchers looking to improve performance, cost and safety.

In this context, the award-winning study explores how Niobium oxides, known for their multiple oxidation states and diverse redox reactions, can contribute to the development of high-performance anodes. Despite promising advantages, Nb₂O₅faces challenges related to low lithium-ion diffusion and limited electrical conductivity.

The authors demonstrated how a rock-salt Nb₂O₅electrode material with high capacity and cycling stability can be produced spontaneously by the electrochemically driven crystallisation of an amorphous nano-channelled Nb₂O₅.

This method offers an innovative approach for the development of high performance and stable electrode materials that were previously unobtainable using conventional synthesis methods.

Global recognition and Niobium's impact

The search for the Charles Hatchett Award winner is wide ranging and covers Niobium alloys, oxides and other compounds and their applications in oil and gas, aerospace, automotive, construction, biomedical, electronics, energy generation and storage and chemical applications including catalysts and glass products.

Each has the potential for global impact, and competition for the award is tough, with hundreds of papers being reviewed in the process.

In the past five years, three award-winning studies have focused on energy storage and battery development, underscoring Niobium's strategic role in technological advancement.

The selection process of the Charles Hatchett Award is concerned with technical excellence and originality, but also takes account of the social, economic and environmental advantages of any proposed application of Niobium.

The annual Award, now in its 46th year, is sponsored by CBMM, The lead authors, Pete Barnes (Idaho National Laboratory) and Claire Xiong (Boise State University), were presented with the Charles Hatchett medal at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) 2024 Premier Award Dinner, held in London on December 5^th, 2024

The Charles Hatchett Award is sponsored by CBMM | Niobium and recognises the best published research on the science and technology of Niobium.