Professor Phoebe Allan MSci, PhD

School of Chemistry
Professor in Materials Chemistry
Birmingham Fellow

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 4431
Email: p.allan@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Chemistry
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Phoebe Allan is a Professor in the School of Chemistry.

Her research focuses on materials chemistry for energy storage. The goal of her research is to understand the links between the structure of a material, and its electrochemical properties, using techniques including: synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, pair distribution function analysis, and spectroscopic techniques (Raman, NMR, X-ray adsorption spectroscopy).

A particular interest is developing experiments which probe the structure of a material as it changes, in real-time, and under operational conditions. This approach gives insight into which structural features are desirable for obtaining new materials with improved performance.

Current areas of interest include new electrode and electrolyte materials for lithium- and sodium- and aluminium-ion batteries.

Qualifications

PhD in Chemistry, University of St Andrews, 2012
MSci Natural Sciences (Physical), University of Cambridge, 2008

Biography

Professor Allan studied Physical Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge from 2004 - 2008. Her final year project focused on the synthesis and characterisation of metal-organic frameworks using phosphine-based ligands, under the supervision of Dr Simon Humphrey.

She completed a PhD with Professor Russell Morris FRS at the University of St Andrews in 2012, where she worked on the storage of medical gases using metal-organic frameworks. She was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the group of Professor Clare Grey FRS from 2012 – 2013, then held a Junior Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, and an Oppenheimer Fellowship from the School of Physical Sciences, University of Cambridge from 2013 – 2018. Here, her research focused on developing synchrotron-based studies to understand and develop new electrodes for lithium and sodium-ion batteries.

From 2015 – 2017, she has also worked as a beamline support scientist at Diamond Light Source - the UK’s synchrotron source, developing sample environments for diffraction and imaging beamlines, and later working on the design of the new Dual Imaging and Diffraction (DIAD) beamline which became operational in 2020.

Postgraduate supervision

Phoebe is seeking motivated students for projects in the following areas:

Synthesis and characterisation of new potential electrode materials for sodium- and aluminium-ion batteries
Developing synchrotron-based methods for understanding synthesis-structure-property relationships in energy materials.

If you are interested in studying one of these subject areas, please contact Professor Allan on the contact details above, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email: dr@contacts.bham.ac.uk

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme page.

Research

Research Themes:

Solid-state electrochemistry
Lithium- and sodium-ion batteries
Diffraction and spectroscopy
Crystallography

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Sweeney, L, Sargent, AT, Dai, Y, Zhou, S, Chen, J, Iacoviello, F, Jervis, R, Allan, PK, Slater, PR, Monroe, C, Anderson, PA, Shearing, PR & Du, W 2026, 'Advanced Characterization and Rejuvenation of End‐Of‐Life Lithium‐Ion Anodes: Toward the Development of a Green Upcycling Route', Small. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202512626

Cattermull, J, Jagger, B, Cassidy, SJ, Dhir, S, Allan, PK, Pasta, M & Goodwin, AL 2026, 'Nonequilibrium ion transport in a hybrid battery material', Science Advances, vol. 12, no. 24, eaed1629. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aed1629

Miah, M, Song, T, Annis, JW, Jarvis, A, Driscoll, EH, Driscoll, LL, Cornelio, J, Attidekou, PS, Kendrick, E, Allan, PK, Anderson, PA & Slater, PR 2026, 'Towards a direct recycling approach for complex Li/Na ion cathode mixtures: a selective leaching approach to separate components', Dalton Transactions. https://doi.org/10.1039/d6dt00556j

Wan, Y, Li, C, Li, Y, De Benito Munoz, R, Williams, J, Stratford, J, Li, Z, Zeng, C, Qin, N, Wang, H, Cao, Y, Gardner, D, Lima da Silva, W, Tippireddy, S, Gan, Q, Zhang, F, Luo, W, Makepeace, J, Zhou, K-J, Zhang, K, Zhang, F, Allan, PK & Lu, Z 2025, 'A Metastable Oxygen Redox Cathode for Lithium-Ion Batteries', Angewandte Chemie International Edition. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202422789

Green, A, Annis, J, Gardner, D, Spiller, A, Allan, P & Slater, P 2025, 'Enhancement in the performance of Nb14W3O44 high power anodes through P doping in the tetrahedral sites', Dalton Transactions, vol. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5DT02060C

Giles, EC, Jarvis, A, Attidekou, PS, Sweeney, L, O'Regan, KB, Madge, R, Sargent, AT, Browning, B, Zorin, A, Sommerville, R, Green, AJ, Michalik, S, Chater, PA, Reed, D, Kendrick, E, Driscoll, LL, Slater, PR, Allan, PK & Anderson, PA 2025, 'Probing the Cause of Capacity Fade in Large‐Format Li‐Ion Pouch Cells through Multimodal Characterization', Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/aesr.202500243

Wang, Y, Li, C, Cao, Y, Xu, J, Gardner, D, da Silva, WL, Huang, Y, Zhang, F, Li, M, Li, Y, Yin, W, Zhang, K, Allan, PK & Lu, Z 2025, 'Spinel-Layered Heterostructure Enables Reversible Oxygen Redox in Lithium Manganese Oxide', Angewandte Chemie (International Edition) , vol. 64, no. 36, e202511054. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202511054

Giles, E, Jarvis, A, Sargent, A, Anderson, P, Allan, P & Slater, P 2024, 'Direct recycling of EV production scrap NMC532 cathode materials', RSC Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SU00389F

Dong, B, Poletayev, A, Cottom, J, Castells-Gil, J, Spencer, BF, Li, C, Zhu, P, Chen, Y, Price, J-M, Driscoll, L, Allan, P, Kendrick, E, Islam, MS & Slater, P 2024, 'Effects of Sulfate Modification of Stoichiometric and Lithium-Rich LiNiO2 Cathode Materials', Journal of Materials Chemistry A, vol. 12, no. 19, pp. 11390-11402. https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TA00284A

Driscoll, L, Jarvis, A, Madge, R, Driscoll, EH, Price, J-M, Sommerville, R, Schanider Tontini, F, Bahri, M, Miah, M, Mehdi, BL, Kendrick, E, Browning, ND, Allan, PK, Anderson, PA & Slater, PR 2024, 'Phase-selective recovery and regeneration of end-of-life electric vehicle blended cathodes via selective leaching and direct recycling', Joule. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2024.07.001

Fordham, A, Milojevic, Z, Giles, E, Du, W, Owen, R, Michalik, S, Chater, P, Das, P, Attidekou, P, Lambert, S, Allan, P, Slater, P, Anderson, P, Jervis, R, Shearing, P & Brett, D 2023, 'Correlative non-destructive techniques to investigate aging and orientation effects in automotive Li-ion pouch cells', Joule, vol. 7, no. 11, pp. 2622-2652. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.10.011

Letter

Wang, Y, Wang, H, Huang, Y, Li, Y, Li, Z, Makepeace, J, Liu, Q, Zhang, F, Allan, P & Lu, Z 2024, 'Mitigating Strain Accumulation in Li₂RuO₃ via Fluorine Doping', Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, vol. 15, no. 20, pp. 5359–5365. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c00748

Wang, Y, Li, Y, Li, Z, Qin, N, Wu, F, Makepeace, JW, Zhang, F, Allan, PK & Lu, Z 2023, 'Monitoring the Local Coordination Evolutions in Li-Rich Cathode Materials via In Situ Raman Spectroscopy', ACS Energy Letters, vol. 8, no. 11, pp. 4888–4894. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.3c02109

Preprint

Fordham, A, Milojevic, Z, Giles, E, Du, W, Owen, RE, Michalik, S, Chater, P, Das, P, Attidekou, P, Lambert, SM, Allan, P, Slater, P, Anderson, P, Jervis, R, Shearing, PR & Brett, DJL 2023 'Combining multi-modal non-destructive techniques to investigate ageing and orientation effects in automotive Li-ion pouch cells' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2023-cghv4

Working paper

Jarvis, A, Madge, R, Stilwell, L, Allan, P, Anderson, P & Slater, P 2025 'Hydrothermal PVDF Binder Mitigation to allow Direct recycling of 2nd generation (NMC532) EoL EV cathode material' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-xt76v

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