Sustainable Materials for Energy Storage, 30 Credits

One research field of Mid Sweden University is the development of new materials, most often nanotechnology related materials, for energy applications. This can be both energy production as well as energy storage and other types of energy related topics. The overall purpose is via these new materials create more sustainable solutions.

The purpose of this course package on master level (second cycle) is to stimulate students exchange between partner universities and this by providing an opportunity for students to attend a research focused 30 credits (ECTS) course package, in which students will interact and be part of Mid Sweden Universities research groups of this research field. The course package provides training on research methods and is partly given as general courses and partly via project-oriented teaching and this in the topic of sustainable materials for energy storage applications. The package consists of four courses in total.

Students starts the semester by taking a survey course in Battery Technology, 7.5 credits (ECTS), to become familiar with different types of battery concepts, this includes besides traditional electrochemistry topics, also cell designs, recycling, and general overview of sustainability aspects.

Parallel to this, students are taking a course in Materials Characterization 7.5 credits (ECTS), an overview course of the most common characterization methods found in materials research, this includes different types of electron microscopy methods, X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy methods etc. The purpose of this course is to train students in the fundamentals of instrumental methods, so they be able to orient themself and decide on proper methods to implement later in their own project work. Part of this course is also the startup of the project work in which the student with the help of using some of the instruments mentioned in the course do an initial investigation in a materials related topic chosen by student, this can include, if suitable, dedicated instrumental training or similar if needed by the project.

After these two courses the first project-oriented course, Project I in Materials Science 6 credits (ECTS), follows in which students are trained in the research perspective. In this course, the students build up the literature background of the project, provides a research plan and do the initial experiments of the concepts of the chosen topic and aim is to find plausible and best route forward for the chosen scientific problem to be solved. The project work is supervised by a senior researcher. The research plan and the initial findings are presented both orally and in written form.

The following project course, Project II in Materials Science, 9 credits (ECTS), students continue and finalize their research work according to their research plan. This course can optionally be carried out fully or partially at the home university if the research topic chosen is suitable for that and resources are available and seen as fruitful according to the research plan. This course ends with a written scientific report and presented jointly orally in a webinar for both participating universities.