Sang Cheol's research focuses on probing and designing electrolytes for energy and sustainability. The electrolyte is an integral part of any electrochemical system. Emerging complex electrolytes hold immense potential for new scientific discovery and device performance improvement.

Sang Cheol employs various approaches to electrolyte research, including new analytical techniques, molecular-level design and data-driven approaches. He is interested in applying these approaches sustainability applications including energy storage, CO2 capture and sustainable manufacturing. 

Our understanding of electrolyte solvation is lagging behind its significance. Utilizing potentiometric methods, we develop novel characterization techniques to probe the solvation free energy and entropy in battery electrolytes.

• Potentiometric measurement to probe solvation energy and its correlation to lithium battery cyclability

• Correlating Li-Ion Solvation Structures and Electrode Potential Temperature Coefficients

Our understanding of electrolyte thermodynamics can be leveraged in designing novel strategies for electrolyte engineering. We design fast-charging electrolytes that can stably cycle with high-voltage anode-free Li metal batteries. 

• High-entropy electrolytes for practical lithium metal batteries

• Solvation-property relationship of lithium-sulphur battery electrolytes

• Electrochemical CO2 capture with pH-independent redox chemistry (submitted)

Electrolyte engineering is a complex problem involving many physicochemical phenomena at different length scales. We deploy a machine learning approach to extract previously unidentified insights from empirical datasets and optimize the Li metal anode cyclability.

• Data-driven electrolyte design for lithium metal anodes