Balasubramaniyan Rajagopalan

Electrolyte Lead Scientist

Balasubramaniyan (Bala) works for InoBat to develop electrolyte material through screening, to produce the best candidate which can achieve a long cycle and calendar life. His expertise in electrolyte development will enable InoBat to produce high energy density lithium-ion batteries with excellent safety performance.

Prior to InoBat, Bala worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS, IEK-12) in Germany from 2019-2022. He has worked on the European project SPIDER and has been involved in various activities including electrolyte development, cell testing and autopsy. He has successfully produced the best electrolyte candidates for various SPIDER cell generations with High Throughput Screening equipment.

Bala received his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2016 from the University of Ulsan in South Korea. During his PhD, he improved the properties of metal oxides by introducing 2-D graphene and explored its application in various fields including lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors and electrocatalyst. During his doctorate, his main interest was developing hybrid metal oxide-based anode materials and binder-free electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. After completing his PhD, he went to the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology in South Korea and worked for 2 years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the investigation of in-situ semi-IPN based solid polymer electrolytes and a composite cathode made of polymer electrolyte for room temperature operated solid-state polymer batteries. He has published 19 scientific articles in peer-reviewed international journals with citations of about 1053 and 5 patents.