Professor Wang's research interests are electroanalytical technologies, advanced materials for rechargeable batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors. He has published over 220 papers in peer-reviewed journals including Science, Nature Energy, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Chemistry, and Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Advanced Materials. His research has been cited more than 13000 times and has an H-index of 63 (ISI. 11/20/2018).
In collaboration with ARL scientist, he achieved the scientific breakthrough in electrolyte materials with the invention of water-in-salt electrolytes for Li-ion batteries (Science 2015) and Zn-air batteries (Nature Materials, 2018), which opened an entirely new area of high voltage aqueous electrochemistry and batteries that never existed before, and has inspired many researchers to follow. As a follow-up of this ground-breaking technology, he is currently collaborating with Scientists in Safe, a world-leading Li-ion battery manufacturer, to demonstrate a 500 Wh aqueous battery pack for electric vehicle application. He also developed a fluorinated electrolyte to form LiF-rich solid-electrolyte-interphase (SEI) on anode and Cathode-electrolyte-interphase (CEI) on the high-voltage cathode to stabilize electrodes (Nature Nanotechnology, 2018). This new design philosophy of SEI sets the foundation for new battery chemistries for years to come.