Introducing WISE Researchers

Assistant Professor Yuanyuan Li is head of the division of biocomposites at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH.  She obtained her PhD degree in 2014 and then joined KTH in 2015. She was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2020. Her research focuses on wood nanoscience and nanotechnology development, as well as related applications including functional wood aerogels, wood electronics, and others.

Why did you choose to join WISE?

WISE is a promising program targeting a sustainable society and provides an attractive platform for researchers to meet and collaborate. My research is relevant to the research areas in WISE. Joining the program is a win-win.

Tell us what your WISE research project is about

Electrocatalytic reactions are critical for the energy conversion processes that occur inside energy storage technologies and therefore play an important role in sustainable energy systems and environmental remediation. Anisotropic metallic aerogela are a gel-type of solid material in which the liquid component has been removed. This material is promising because it combines the unique properties of metal with the structural advantages of aerogels. Copper is a particularly attractive material due to its large reserves, high activity, and accessible redox states. Current fabrication is limited by the technologies to build up large anisotropic aerogel structures. This project aims to design and fabricate scalable anisotropic copper aerogel electrocatalysts by biomaterial templating where biomaterial structures are used and tailored.

How will your research impact our society in the future?

This project contributes to efficient energy conversions for clean energy related to the Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) 7. The CO₂ reduction is a technology for CO₂ capture and storage, which is directly relates to SDG 13. It also addresses the need to utilize raw materials (Cu) more efficiently related to SDG 8. Materials recycling/upcycling is also considered for this project, in line with SDG 12.

To learn more about Yuanyuan Li’s WISE project visit: https://wise-materials.org/project/anisotropic-cu-aerogel-monolith-electrocatalyst/