Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Driscoll MSci MRSC MIMMM

School of Metallurgy and Materials
Assistant Professor in Energy Materials
Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow

Contact details

Email: e.h.driscoll@bham.ac.uk

Address: University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Elizabeth Driscoll is an Assistant Professor in Energy Materials within the School focused on designing safe, sustainable and recyclable next-generation battery technologies. She holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and is an award-winning battery education communicator.

Qualifications

PhD in Chemistry, University of Birmingham, 2022
MSci Chemistry with Industrial Experience, University of Birmingham, 2017

Biography

Dr Elizabeth Driscoll is an Assistant Professor in Energy Materials within the School of Metallurgy and Materials focused on designing safe, sustainable and recyclable next-generation battery technologies. Lizzie holds a prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship titled “FluorOUT: towards more environmentally friendly batteries” to develop a fluorine-free Li-ion battery with built-in recyclability.

From April 2026, Lizzie will be a co-investigator Faraday Institution’s flagship electrochemical recycling programme, ReLiB global.

Lizzie obtained her PhD in Chemistry, from the University of Birmingham, under the supervision of Prof. Peter Slater on the topic of “Novel Electrode Materials and Educational Resources for Li-/Na-ion Batteries”, where her work focused on the synthesis of novel sodium metal polyanion cathode systems, as well as high power niobium anode systems. Prior to this work, Lizzie’s research was in the form of energy generation, having interned with Oxford PV Ltd and completing a Masters in greener alternatives for photovoltaic materials.

From October 2021- September 2025, Lizzie was a post-doctoral research associate with Prof. Emma Kendrick, focused on the physical and chemical processing in the recycling of Li-ion batteries – with consideration towards reclaiming lithium, and understanding processing effects associated with the direct recycling of LiFePO₄. On a part-time basis, she also supported Prof. Peter Slater’s industrial fellowship with Echion Technologies focused on next-generation fast charging battery materials.

Lizzie is nationally recognised for her award-winning battery education and outreach, notably her ‘Battery Jenga’ piece, with her efforts recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry, IOM3 and the Faraday Institution. Her efforts in making resources accessible for visually impaired students was also recognised by the team award to ChemBAM by the Royal Society of Chemistry Inclusion and Diversity award. Her outreach work has been featured in the National Geographic, Discover magazine and The American Ceramic Society.

Lizzie acts as the STEM outreach trainer for the Faraday Institution enrichment scheme.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Driscoll, L, Kallitsis, E, Marco, JF, Burnett, D, Pham, S, Sommerville, R, Cooper, L, Edge, J, Berry, F, Slater, P & Kendrick, E 2025, 'Grave to Cradle: A Direct Recycling Approach for Over-Discharged LiFePO₄ Electric Vehicle Cells', Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/aesr.202500174

Lee, H, Driscoll, EH, Waters, KE, Kendrick, E & Sommerville, R 2025, 'Pretreatment and Valorization of Critical Materials from Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Electrostatic and Magnetic Separation', Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research. https://doi.org/10.1002/aesr.202400366

Liu, B, Song, T, Chen, L, Thirumalai Shekhar, A, Mirolo, M, Vinci, V, Drnec, J, Cornelio, J, Xie, D, Driscoll, L, Slater, P & Kendrick, E 2025, 'Sustainable Recovery and Reuse of Hard Carbon From Scrap and End-of-Life Sodium-Ion Batteries', Advanced Energy Materials. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202405894

Green, A, Driscoll, L, Anderson, P, Kendrick, E & Slater, P 2024, 'High-Power Recycling: Upcycling to the Next Generation of High-Power Anodes for Li-ion Battery Applications', Journal of Materials Chemistry A, vol. 2024, no. 12, pp. 7321-7328. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3TA07549D

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

Harper, GDJ, Kendrick, E, Anderson, PA, Mrozik, W, Christensen, P, Lambert, S, Greenwood, D, Das, PK, Ahmeid, M, Milojevic, Z, Du, W, Brett, DJL, Shearing, PR, Rastegarpanah, A, Stolkin, R, Sommerville, R, Zorin, A, Durham, JL, Abbott, AP, Thompson, D, Browning, ND, Mehdi, BL, Bahri, M, Schanider-Tontini, F, Nicholls, D, Stallmeister, C, Friedrich, B, Sommerfeld, M, Driscoll, LL, Jarvis, A, Giles, EC, Slater, PR, Echavarri-Bravo, V, Maddalena, G, Horsfall, LE, Gaines, L, Dai, Q, Jethwa, SJ, Lipson, AL, Leeke, GA, Cowell, T, Farthing, JG, Mariani, G, Smith, A, Iqbal, Z, Golmohammadzadeh, R, Sweeney, L, Goodship, V, Li, Z, Edge, J, Lander, L, Nguyen, VT, Elliot, RJR, Heidrich, O, Slattery, M, Reed, D, Ahuja, J, Cavoski, A, Lee, R, Driscoll, E, Baker, J, Littlewood, P, Styles, I, Mahanty, S & Boons, F 2023, 'Roadmap for a sustainable circular economy in lithium-ion and future battery technologies', Journal of Physics: Energy, vol. 5, no. 2, 021501. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7655/acaa57

Green, A, Driscoll, L, Lakhdar, Y, Kendrick, E & Slater, P 2023, 'Structural and Electrochemical Insights into novel Wadsley Roth Nb7Ti1.5Mo1.5O25 and Ta7Ti1.5Mo1.5O25 anodes for Li-ion Battery Application', Dalton Transactions, vol. 2023, no. 52, pp. 13110-13118. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3DT02144K

Driscoll, L, Driscoll, L, Dong, B, Sayed, F, Wilson, J, O'Keefe, CA, Grey, C, Allan, P, Michalchuk, A & Slater, P 2023, 'Under Pressure: Offering Fundamental Insight into Structural Changes on Ball Milling Battery Materials', Energy & Environmental Science, vol. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1039/D3EE00249G

Zhu, P, Driscoll, EH, Dong, B, Sommerville, R, Zorin, A, Slater, PR & Kendrick, E 2022, 'Direct reuse of aluminium and copper current collectors from spent lithium-ion batteries', Green Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/D2GC03940K

Driscoll, L, Orera, A, Anderson, P, Sanjuan, ML & Slater, P 2021, 'Raman spectroscopy insights into the α - and δ - phases of Formamidinium Lead Iodide (FAPbI3)', Dalton Transactions, vol. 50, no. 9, pp. 3315-3323. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0DT04300A

Xiu, J, Dong, B, Driscoll, L, Feng, X, Muhammad, A, Chen, S, Du, Z, Zhu, Y, Zhang, Z, Tang, Z, He, Z & Slater, P 2020, 'Degradation induced Lattice Anchoring Self-passivation in CsPbI3-xBrx', Journal of Materials Chemistry A, vol. 8, no. 19, pp. 9963-9969. https://doi.org/10.1039/D0TA02210A

Comment/debate

Gaggio, B, Driscoll, EH, Robinson, FCJ, Singleton, J & MacManus-Driscoll, JL 2026, 'Anecdotes and guidance notes: surviving and thriving as a woman in science', Journal of Physics: Energy, vol. 8, no. 1, 011002. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7655/ae26cb

Letter

Driscoll, EH, Green, A, Fortes, AD, Howard, C, Driscoll, LL, Kendrick, E, Greaves, C & Slater, PR 2024, 'A High-Power 4 × 4: Crystallographic and Electrochemical Insights into a Novel Wadsley-Roth Anode Nb₉Ti_1.5W_1.5O₃₀', Chemical Communications . https://doi.org/10.1039/D4CC02844A

Preprint

Zhu, P, Driscoll, EH, Dong, B, Sommerville, R, Zorin, A, Slater, PR & Kendrick, E 2022 'Direct reuse of aluminium and copper current collectors from spent lithium-ion batteries' arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2210.07678

Working paper

Gardner, D, James, M, Wright, S, Williams, J, Baldwin, O, Ball, T, Cooper, E, Monk, C, Driscoll, L & Slater, P 2023 'Feeling blue: utilising cation ordering to engineer the colour of apatite pigments' ChemRxiv. https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2023-spq6s

View all publications in research portal