Fudan’s post-90s doctoral supervisor “crazy” crosses borders: inviting robots to drink “milk tea”

IP SHANGHAI

With the comprehensive advancement of the dual-carbon goal, the large-scale application of new energy storage technologies is imperative. As a science and technology innovation territory, Shanghai has a good foundation in energy innovation and development, and is at the leading level in the country in terms of technological research, infrastructure, and demonstration applications. In order to help realize the dual-carbon goal ahead of schedule, Shanghai is actively exploring the development trends and paths of the energy industry and accelerating the cultivation of new drivers of green development. Shanghai, with its atmosphere of "mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation", has naturally attracted countless entrepreneurs and investors The gathering of entrepreneurs and the city's encouragement of related industries from scratch also attracted a large number of aspiring young people who came here to "break ground and open up new fields".

At Fudan University in Shanghai, there is such a young and "crazy" battery research team. They specially prepared a "milk tea" for the robot and made the battery into a "robot stomach". The robot that drinks the "milk tea" will convert the energy of the "milk tea" into electrical energy within 1 minute, so as to achieve efficient work and meet the needs of the robot. People’s pursuit of continuous motivation.

A robot that can quickly supply energy by "eating and drinking" sounds fantastic, but in the eyes of team leader Gao Yue, there may be opportunities to use organic materials to make batteries and use organic materials to solve energy-related problems. A surprising catch. “After a subject develops to a certain level, it is difficult to solve some problems with traditional methods,” he said. “But multidisciplinary interdisciplinary research can often find new ways to solve problems.”

Gao Yue is undoubtedly an expert in interdisciplinary research. As an undergraduate, he studied the synthesis of small molecules of natural products. During his master's degree, he specialized in anti-tumor glycopeptide vaccines. During his Ph.D., he began to study lithium batteries. During his postdoctoral work, he also studied 3D printing and robotics... He has worked in Lanzhou, Beijing, the United States and other places. Gao Yue, who had a lot of academic experience, finally decided to come to Shanghai after going round and round, and worked as a young researcher and doctoral supervisor at Fudan University, leading a research team to go "crazy" about batteries.

Come here because Shanghai is the stage

After changing many schools, studying many majors, and visiting many places, Gao Yue was finally attracted by the Polymer Science Department of Fudan University. “The level of the Polymer Science Department of Fudan University is very high. They are world-class in many directions and are doing world-leading work," Gao Yue said. Therefore, after returning to China, he took the initiative to apply for a job and passed various assessments to get the opportunity to stay at Fudan. "I deeply felt that it was conducive to The importance of interdisciplinary research background and culture to our scientific researchers is one of the reasons why I chose to come to Shanghai and Fudan."

Panic was Gao Yue’s first feeling after becoming a doctoral supervisor. What followed was a stronger sense of mission. “The country and the school have invested a lot of manpower and financial resources to support us in scientific and technological innovation. It is very Thank you Shanghai and Fudan for giving me the opportunity, it is a great trust." The all-round support and ample development space provided by the school for Gao Yue inspired him. "In such a very high-level atmosphere, with very good learning role models around me, I will continue to grow," Gao Yue said frankly.

And he himself is also full of the power of role models. In the 2022 list of "35 Technological Innovators Under 35 Years Old" released by MIT Technology Review, Gao Yue is listed as a young researcher in the Department of Polymer Science at Fudan University. Selected as a Fudanese, this is also the first time he has received great recognition as a Fudan native. His attitude towards cross-border innovation and Fudan’s advanced scientific research concepts hit it off, and they promote each other to create a win-win situation.

Gao Yue is happy to do cross-border innovative scientific research work, and he always likes to share the gains from it. "I like a high degree of crossover. Solving problems like a rock from another mountain may lead to new breakthroughs and The possibility brought about by the collision of knowledge fascinates him. This is also one of the motivations for him to persist in the scientific research industry. Although in daily scientific research experiments, 80% of ideas and experiments may fail, the 20% of new possibilities and new paths still fascinate him. "The challenges are huge, but I think this is where the fun of scientific research lies."

Keep working hard and play new tricks with the battery

As a global trend, electrification is an important way to support the construction of new energy systems, build new power systems and help achieve the "double carbon" goal, and battery technology is an important part of promoting electrification. "Battery is the basic equipment of all electric vehicles, electric planes, electric ships and other electric equipment. Only when the battery is ready can these things take off," Gao Yue said, "So the work we do is actually for these Laying the foundation for the electrification of devices."

What kind of batteries do people need under the electrification trend? How to create batteries with higher energy density, shorter charging time, and more sustainable resources and environment? This is the problem that the research team led by Gao Yue is solving. The scientific research team is composed of a group of undergraduates, master students, doctoral students and postdoctoral students born in the 1990s and 2000s. They have different disciplinary backgrounds, are young and full of imagination. "Sometimes we will quarrel for scientific research. After the quarrel, The more we debate this issue, the clearer it will become.” Another advantage of young teams is that they dare to challenge themselves and come up with crazy ideas rather than just communicating directly. ”

Gao Yue always encourages students to break the existing thinking stereotypes and have more bold and novel ideas, and guides them to create new materials to solve the core problems and bottlenecks in current energy device research, feeding milk tea to robots It is one of the products of "crazy ideas". "Make the battery into a robot, and then make a cup of "milk tea" for the robot. When there is no power, let it drink a cup of "milk tea", convert the energy in the milk tea into electrical energy, drive it to work, and eat like a human when it is hungry. The benefits of this are obvious. "The process of drinking 'milk tea' is very fast and can be completed in one minute. It takes 4 to 12 hours to charge the battery, so we solve the waiting time for charging." "At the same time, the liquid excreted by the machine can be recycled electrochemically to form a closed energy loop. "That is to say, the milk tea can be used up and then turned into new milk tea, which can greatly reduce the price."

Walking on a creative path, Gao Yue and his team's goal is to bring new products to the public through scientific research, use new products to serve society, and make people's lives better. I think young scientific researchers should have the ideas and emotions to serve the country and express my opinions honestly. In the future, Gao Yue will lead the research team to continue to explore transformative work based on organic functional materials, solve pain point problems in the fields of energy storage and intelligent robots, and actively promote the transformation of technology into practical applications while taking advantage of multidisciplinary research.

Editor of this issue Zou Shan

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