Birmingham researchers win 2025 Faraday Institution Community Award for Collaboration

Made up of early-career researchers from the University of Birmingham and University College London, Roksana Jackowska and Marcus Tuchel (Birmingham) and Arthur Fordham and Brandon Frost (UCL), The FACET (Formation, Analysis and Control through the linking of acoustic, Electrochemical, and topographical Techniques) team have been recognised for demonstrating exceptional initiative in addressing unanswered research questions relating to the formation process – one of the most underexplored challenges in battery manufacturing.

The group initiated this research entirely independently, driven by intellectual curiosity and a shared commitment to building impactful collaborations. They successfully applied for a Faraday Institution ECR Collaboration Award, securing £5,000 to lead independent cross-project research. The project has since garnered further recognition, including a £3,000 STFC Early Career Research Grant for Arthur Fordham to support a research visit to UNSW Sydney, which included a successful beamtime at the Australian Synchrotron, as well as a £500 Royal Society of Chemistry travel award.

The FACET project addresses a longstanding challenge in lithium-ion battery manufacturing: the formation process, during which the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) forms. This phase is critical to battery performance and safety yet remains poorly understood. FACET approached the problem using a unique combination of techniques, including acoustic emission, electrochemical atomic force microscopy, and intermittent current interruption (ICI), correlated with advanced characterisation methods, including at synchrotrons. This multi-scale approach provided new insight into SEI evolution across chemical, structural and electrochemical dimensions.

Guided by supervisors including Emma Kendrick (University of Birmingham), Rhodri Jervis, Rhodri Owen and Thomas Miller (UCL), and Wesley Dose (University of New South Wales – UNSW), the team enabled breakthroughs such as the novel use of ICI during formation (a first for the field) and refined operando acoustic emission methods for monitoring gas evolution. As a result, the researchers have deepened understanding of SEI behaviour and its dependence on electrolyte composition and the importance of specific additives.

The collaboration has generated a robust dataset, with the first publication now ready for submission and more expected. Equally important, the project paved the way for new methodological standards and fostered cross-institutional relationships.

The Faraday Institution is the UK's independent institute for electrochemical energy storage research, skills development, market analysis, and early-stage commercialisation. Their Community Awards are presented to researchers and teams who demonstrate excellence and go above and beyond in the field of energy storage.

The Collaboration Award recognises outstanding examples of research progress through multi-university, multi-disciplinary and/or academic-industry collaboration.

Of the award, Roksana Jackowska, University of Birmingham, said:

"It's been a huge privilege to receive an ECR Collaboration Award. I'm grateful to have been involved in developing and executing the project from start to finish. The highlight was summarising our findings into a journal article (in progress) and building rapport between our institutions, leading to a follow-up study on sodium-ion battery chemistry. My favourite aspect was working with all the collaborators and creating a project where everyone contributed something unique, with each skill set complementing the others."