TeC group @ UU

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Computational electrochemistry with atomistic simulation and ML

We are a computational group based in Uppsala,  
working on "The physical chemistry of ionically  
conducting solutions" and "The physical chemistry  
of electrically charged interfaces" for energy  
storage applications.

group_photo

(From left to right: Zhan-Yun, Aishwarya, Emily, Alicia, Lisanne, Aniello, Linnéa, and Jichen)

People :cn: :india: :netherlands: :sweden: :iceland:

Name Role Email Note
Chao Zhang PI chao.zhang@TeC Biosketch
Lisanne Knijff PhD student lisanne.knijff@TeC ML-accelerated simulations
Linnéa Andersson PhD student linnea.andersson@TeC Metal/electrolyte interfaces
Aishwarya Sudhama PhD student aishwarya.sudhama@TeC Oxide/electrolyte interfaces
Alicia van Hees PhD student alicia.van-hees@TeC Interfacial PCET
Jichen Li PhD student jichen.li@TeC Polymer electrolytes (with Daniel Brandell)
Zhan-Yun Zhang Postdoc zhan-yun.zhang@TeC WISE-ap1
Movaffaq Kateb Senior postdoc movaffaq.kateb@TeC Self-healing polymers (with Kristina Edström)

:warning: Replace “TeC” with “kemi.uu.se”

Research directions

:dart: Modeling electrochemical interfaces with finite field MD

A realistic representation of an electrochemical interface requires treating electronic, structural, and dynamic properties on an equal footing. Density-functional theory-based molecular dynamics (DFTMD) method is perhaps the only approach that can provide a consistent atomistic description. However, the challenge for DFTMD modeling of material’s interfacial dielectrics is the slow convergence of the polarization P, where P is a central quantity to connect all dielectric properties of an interface.

Our contribution in this area is the development of finite field MD simulation techniques for computing electrical properties (such as the dielectric constant of polar liquids and the Helmholtz capacitance of solid-electrolyte interfaces) [1-3]. Its DFTMD implementation is available in one of our community codes CP2K (www.cp2k.org).

:dart: Simulating charge transport in battery electrolytes

Lithium batteries are electrochemical devices that involve multiple time-scale and length-scale to achieve their optimal performance and safety requirement. In terms of the electrolyte which serves as the ionic conductor, a molecular-level understanding of the corresponding transport phenomenon is crucial for rational design.

Currently, we are working on MD simulations of ionic conductivity and other transport coefficients, e.g. transference number, in different types of electrolytes from aqueous electrolytes to polymer electrolytes (with Daniel Brandell) which are relevant to battery applications [4-6].

:dart: Developing atomistic machine learning for electrochemistry

Machine learning (ML) is becoming increasingly important in computational chemistry and materials discovery. Atomic neural networks (ANN), which constitute a class of ML methods, have been very successful in predicting physicochemical properties and approximating potential energy surfaces.

Recently, we have taken the initiative and developed an open-source Python library named PiNN https://github.com/Teoroo-CMC/PiNN/, allowing researchers to easily develop and train state-of-the-art ANN architectures specifically for making chemical predictions. In particular, we have designed and implemented an interpretable and high-performing graph convolutional neural network architecture PiNet for predicting potential energy surface, polarization, and response charge (to the voltage bias) [7-9], and demonstrate how the chemical insight “learned” by such a network can be extracted. This will allow us to carry out the atomistic simulation of electrochemical systems powered by ML models [10].

Recent publications

[1] Andersson, L. and Zhang*, C. Curr. Opin. Electrochem., 2023, 42: 101407, DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.coelec.2023.101407

[2] Knijff, L., Jia, M. and Zhang*, C. Encyclopedia of Solid-Liquid Interfaces, 2024, 2: 567, DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-323-85669-0.00012-X

[3] Andersson, L., Sprik, M., Hutter, J. and Zhang*, C. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2024, e202413614, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202413614

[4] Gudla, H., Shao, Y., Phunnarungsi, S., Brandell, D. and Zhang*, C. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2021, 12: 8460, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c02474

[5] Shao, Y., Gudla, H., Brandell, D. and Zhang*, C. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022, 144: 7583, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.2c02389

[6] Gudla, H., Edström, K. and Zhang*, C. ACS Mater. Au, 2024, 4: 300 DOI: 10.1021/acsmaterialsau.3c00098

[7] Shao, Y., Hellström*, M., Mitev, P. D., Knijff, L. and Zhang*, C. J. Chem. Inf. Model., 2020, 60: 1184, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jcim.9b00994

[8] Knijff, L. and Zhang*, C. Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol., 2021, 2: 03LT03, DOI: 10.1088/2632-2153/ac0123 (Letter)

[9] Shao, Y., Andersson, L., Knijff, L. and Zhang*, C. Electron. Struct., 2022, 4: 014012, DOI:10.1088/2516-1075/ac59ca (Invited paper)

[10] Dufils, T., Knjiff, L., Shao, Y. and Zhang*, C. J. Chem. Theory Comput., 2023, 19: 5199, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00359

Alumni

Name Country Role Current Position/Location
Aniello Langella :it: Visiting PhD student (with Daniel Brandell) PhD student@UniNa (Italy)
Harish Gudla :india: Postdoc (with Kristina Edström) Computational materials scientist@Compular (Sweden)
Emily Azzopardi :malta: Master student Uppsala (Sweden)
Yunqi Shao :cn: PhD student Research engineer@Chalmers (Sweden)
Thomas Dufils :fr: Postdoc Teacher@Lycée Albert Einstein (France)
Matthew Chagnot :us: Visiting PhD student PhD student@NCSU (US)
Sheng Bi :cn: Visiting postdoc postdoc@Sorbonne (France)
Alicia van Hees :sweden: Master student PhD student@UU (Sweden)
Harish Gudla :india: PhD student (with Daniel Brandell) Postdoc@UU (Sweden)
Alexandros Zantis :cyprus: Summer intern Master student@UU (Sweden)
Albert Pettersson :sweden: Master student Chemical engineer@Sandvik Materials Technology (Sweden)
Yong Li :cn: Postdoc Assistant professor@CQU (China)
Majid Shahbabaei :iran: Postdoc Assistant professor@BNUT (Iran)
Omar Malik :united_arab_emirates: Summer intern Master student@UU (Sweden)
Linnéa Andersson :sweden: Research assistant PhD student@UU (Sweden)
Florian Dietrich :de: Master student PhD student@UCL (UK)
Mei Jia :cn: Visiting PhD student Lecturer@SQNU (China)
Lisanne Knijff :netherlands: Master student PhD student@UU (Sweden)
Supho Phunnarungsi :thailand: Summer intern Bangkok (Thailand)
Shuang Han :cn: Master student Postdoc@BASF (Germany)
Are Yllö :sweden: Master student Research engineer@Sandvik Coromant (Sweden)
Thomas Sayer :uk: Visiting PhD student Postdoc@CUBoulder (US)

Acknowledgement

We thank the financial supports from Vetenskapsrådet (VR), the European Research Council (ERC) DeepProton project and the Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE).

We are also part of the materials modelling community TEOROO based at Kemi-Ångström.

Funding

"The drive for excellence relies on both competitive 
energy and collaborative partnership."