Guwahati, May 12: A Ph.D scholar from Nagaland University has won the support of the Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi for his research on battery technologies.
Dipankar Hazarika is one among the only 13 innovators in the country to have been selected for the prestigious ‘Energy Innovation Fellowship Grant’ by the Royal Norwegian Embassy to accelerate community innovations in battery energy storage in India.
His awarded project is titled ‘Sustainable Biopolymer-based Hydrogel Electrolytes for Next-generation Solid-state Energy Storage’.
The innovation could play a critical role in enabling flexible, wearable and sustainable electronic devices and support India’s goal for clean and safe energy storage technologies.
Such indigenous innovative solutions that directly empower local communities in battery and energy technologies are vital for India to achieve its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2070.
Hazarika had done his research under the supervision of Nurul Alam Choudhury, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry, Nagaland University.
The research scholar’s work has achieved laboratory-scale validation and an Indian patent has been filed to protect the innovation.
He has already developed a lab-scale prototype, which exhibited excellent physicochemical and electrochemical performance including high-rate capability, high areal capacitance and a remarkable cycle life of 51,500 cycles at 2 mAcm-2 in an all-solid-state supercapacitor.
Notably, his research was recently published in the Journal of Power Sources (a Q1 Journal with an Impact Factor of 8.1) in a research paper titled, ‘An ionically cross-linked chitosan hydrogel membrane electrolyte for long-lived electrical double layer capacitors’.
The research paper was co-authored by Dipankar Hazarika, Duangailung Kamei, Nuphizo Shijoh and Nurul Alam Choudhury.
Hazarika, who is currently doing his PhD research at the Laboratory for Polymer Materials and Renewable Energy, Department of Chemistry, Nagaland University, said, “This fellowship will significantly strengthen my research by providing access to expert mentorship and opportunities for industry linkage. I believe it will help translate my research into a product that contributes to sustainable energy solutions.”
The initiative (fellowship grant) is being implemented in collaboration with Innovation Norway, NITI Aayog (Government of India), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Atal Incubation Centres (AICs).
Congratulating the scholar on his path-breaking work, Jagadish K. Patnaik, Vice-Chancellor, Nagaland University, said, “This milestone reflects the growing research excellence at Nagaland University and inspires others to pursue impactful science”.