A/Prof Palani Balaya elected as Fellow of American Ceramics Society (ACerS)

ACerS Award Winner (Society Fellow) – A/Prof Palani Balaya

Associate Professor Palani Balaya has been elected as a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). Upon the recommendation by a Panel of Fellows, the ACerS Board of Directors unanimously approved his selection. The 2019 Class of Fellows at ACerS comes from an international cross-section of leaders in academia, research labs, industry and government. A/Prof Palani is recognised for his outstanding contributions to the science and technology of advanced ceramic materials for energy storage and excellent service to the Society.

During his stay (2001-2006) at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (Stuttgart, Germany), A/Prof Palani made substantial contributions to several fundamental concepts including interfacial electrical conduction, interfacial energy storage and thermodynamics at nanosize. He was the first to provide indirect experimental evidence for mesoscopic phenomenon in SrTiO₃ nanoceramic using impedance spectroscopy showing electrical conduction fully dominated by interfacial space charges.

Later when he moved to the National University of Singapore in Jan 2007, he took lead in setting up a team for battery research with excellent facilities (kilo-scale lab., for material production up to 5kg/batch; pilot line for fabrication of 18650 cells) that helped to carry out both fundamental as well as translational battery research. His contribution on titanate based anodes (TiO₂ anatase and Li₄Ti₅O₁₂) for high power Li-ion battery is worth mentioning. He also successfully introduced glyme based electrolyte for sodium-ion battery, fabricating for the first time commercial type non-flammable sodium-ion cells for stationary storage applications which are being adopted by industries now. In order to lower cost of battery and avoid environmental pollution by toxic solvents such as NMP (commonly used by industries along with PVDF binder), he introduced novel eco-binders extracted from natural resources and shown improved storage performance using commercial type Li-ion cells.  TRL of such eco-binders is close to 5 and ready for commercialisation.

Among several research grants acquired by A/Prof Palani at Singapore (~10mil), the prestigious US-DARPA grant received twice (2009 and 2011) is worth mentioning. His research work has resulted in over hundred publications, over thirty patents and invention disclosures, and over eighty (since 2007) technical presentations.

He represented Singapore in Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and served as a Co-ordinating Lead Author for preparing a Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (2011).

Prof. Palani has contributed to the American Ceramic Society organizing several symposia on energy storage (39^th ICACC, 40^th ICACC, 41^st ICACC, 42^nd ICACC, 43^rd ICACC, MCARE2014, MCARE2016, MCARE2017, PACRIM 2017, CMCEE2015). In July 2018, he organized successfully CMCEE2018 at Singapore with ~700 participants from 46 countries. In recognition and appreciation of such extensive contributions to the society, he received the “Global Star Award” in 2015 from Engineering Ceramic Division of the ACerS. Later in 2016, he was also recognized as an “ACerS Global Ambassador”.

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