News
- 05/18/2026 Hosted the visit of Prof. Ju Li (MIT) to NTU
It was a great pleasure to host Prof. Ju Li from MIT for a stimulating talk on “AI and the Future of Scientific Research.”
Many thanks to all the colleagues and especially the many students who joined the discussion. It was especially encouraging to see such strong engagement during the summer term, and to feel the curiosity around this topic.
I had previously attended Prof. Li’s group meetings and enjoyed discussions across different research areas. This visit was another reminder of how interdisciplinary thinking can open up new perspectives, especially as AI is increasingly serving as a bridge that connects different fields and accelerates this integration. Over these three days, we had many exciting conversations—from energy materials to AI for science.
I used to think of AI mainly as a powerful tool. But the more we discuss and explore, the more it feels like we are only at the very beginning of something much bigger.
This naturally brings the focus back to materials, where AI and materials science will continue to reinforce each other. Really looking forward to seeing what the first true “killer app” in materials science will be.
- 04/2026 Dr. Zhang gave recent seminars at Wuhan University of Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, and the NTU Energy Future Seminar Series.
Weiran presented recent advances in high-energy batteries, solid-state battery interfaces, and silicon-based energy storage at Wuhan University of Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the National University of Singapore, and the NTU Energy Future Seminar Series.
These visits provided excellent opportunities for scientific exchange and discussions on future collaborations.
- 11/13/2025 We host Dr. Kang Xu’s visit at NTU
We were delighted to host Dr. Kang Xu (SES AI) at NTU EEE for his seminar “Electrolytes, Interfaces, Interphases, and AI4Batteries.”
He delivered an insightful lecture covering electrolyte history, and interface/interphase design. A memorable highlight was his reflection on Svante Arrhenius, whose PhD thesis on spontaneous ionic dissociation was graded “barely satisfactory,” yet later became foundational to electrochemistry and earned the Nobel Prize.
Kang also provided a live demonstration of the Molecular Universe SES AI platform, showing how AI can accelerate materials discovery and expand chemical design space.
After the seminar, we held a short interaction session and shared signed copies of Kang’s new book with several participants.
- 11/09/2025 The IBA 2025 meeting in Singapore! We were delighted to reconnect with friends and colleagues from around the world.
The International Battery Materials Associate IBA2025 meeting was successfully held in Singapore. It is exciting to see the growing momentum in electrochemistry and batteries in Singapore, and to be part of such a vibrant community in energy and materials.
- 10/27/2025 The EI2 group start!
Weiran moved from University of Maryland to Nanyang Technological University. Will miss everyone there!!!
- 10/12/2025 248th ECS meeting in Chicago!
Weiran delivered two talks at the 248th Electrochemical Society Meeting in Chicago:
“Electrolyte and Interface Design for High-Performance All-Solid-State Lithium Metal Batteries” by Dr. Weiran Zhang
“Aqueous Electrolyte Design to Achieve High Energy Batteries” on behalf of Prof. Chunsheng Wang
- 01/2025 Prof. Wang and Dr. Weiran Zhang developed a breakthrough solid-state battery chemistry, published in Nature Materials, enabling stable, high-performance all-solid-state lithium metal batteries operation under practical conditions.
News: Deep Tech, MIT Technology Review, Maryland Energy Innovation News, Sina, NetEase, Tencent, etc.
- 01/2024 TechXplore highlights our recent research published in Nature Energy!
News: TechXplore, Deep Tech, MIT Technology Review, UMD ENG News, etc.
