Issue 07 | Dec 2025
Forging New Frontiers
Mechanical Engineering
Building safer batteries
Associate Professor Palani Balaya develops sodium- and lithium-ion battery technologies, raising their performance and safety for an increasingly electrified world.
A
s electrification spreads from motorcycles, cars and trailers to neighbourhood microgrids, the energy density of the batteries is becoming increasingly higher, and as a result, they are getting increasingly heavier and riskier. While battery capacity is a crucial differentiator, safety, cost and supply resilience are also unmistakable ingredients in formulating efficient, highperformance batteries. Lithium-ion batteries remain the dominating workhorse, but its flammable liquids and tight supply chains leave gaps for other chemistries to fill. At the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Associate Professor Palani Balaya and his team explore those options,
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