Objective 

Through the Mentor-Mentee Pair Programme, StoRIES offers PhD students the support of excellent senior scientists and engineers. In the programme, PhD students will be mentees under the guidance and supervision of senior research mentors from academia and industry. StoRIES believes the successful thesis activities, preparing the student for its future work, should include the possibility of networking and getting soft skills, but also knowledge on topics not directly linked to the thesis. The PhD students working on hybrid energy storage approaches will receive a great opportunity to meet and discuss their work and its impact and to look at it from a wide point of view.

Procedure

1. If you would like to become one of the StoRIES mentors, please apply by contacting Pınar Arpaçay (KIT) and Olga Sumińska-Ebersoldt (KIT) by email.

2. The mentor (PhD supervisor) is asked to submit a short CV, while the mentee (PhD student) submits a CV and thesis description. As the mentor must agree to the mentee's participation in the programme, his/her email address should be included in the application email.

3. The application will be assessed within 1 month, after the application email. Mentor-mentee pairs must be accepted by the Education Programme Management Committee (EPMC) of StoRIES.

Implementation

The collaboration between the mentor and mentee established under the StoRIES programme should include the following:

• One face-to-face meeting, if requested. The meeting should take place concomitantly with an event, possibly a StoRIES event, of interest for both the mentor and the mentee. The costs for such a meeting are covered by the StoRIES budget.

• The doctoral candidate or the mentor will apply for reimbursement before the trip. Depending on the decision of EPMC, a confirmation of reimbursement will be sent, or a refusal will be justified.

• StoRIES will cover travel, accommodation, and daily expenses for a stay no longer than required for the Mentoring Programme. The last request for reimbursement will be accepted 6 months before the end of StoRIES project.

• Regular online meetings every 6 months to discuss the PhD, its progress, challenges and plans for the next 6 months.

• Final report at the end of the programme with information about the dissertation, the added value of the programme and a communication flow (meetings) to be confirmed by both parties. The report will be published on the StoRIES website.

The collaboration between the mentor and the mentee must last longer than one year and ends automatically with the end of the PhD study or with the end of the StoRIES project. Even if the formal collaboration and support ends with the StoRIES project, the mentor and mentee are encouraged to continue their collaboration as they see fit.

Mentor-Mentee Pairs

In March 2023, StoRIES' first mentor-mentee pair began their collaboration Prof. Stefano Passerini, representative of Sapienza University of Rome, will support Hüseyin Ersoy from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with his expertise in the PhD thesis entitled ‘Application of constructive sustainability assessment (CSA) for emerging energy storage technologies’. The central question of the dissertation project is to identify how can constructive sustainability assessment (CSA) approach be used to develop a sustainable and economically feasible Al-air battery for seasonal energy storage, while minimizing negative impacts and identifying opportunities for improvement through informed decision-making. To this aim, the dissertation aims evaluation of LCSA methodologies, and provide a full application case that will act as a blueprint for full assessment of an emerging energy storage technologies. The cumulative dissertation will be carried out with 3 papers concerning methodology review and evaluation, a full LCSA of an emerging Al-air battery, and a conclusive research article about the impact of integrating sustainable thinking in early design phases.

In December 2023, StoRIES welcomed the second mentor-mentee pair collaboration between senior researcher Prof. Giovanni Battista Appetecchi from the ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Sustainable Economic Development) and PhD student Luigi Jacopo Santa Maria from University of Limerick. Dr. Appetecchi will support Santa Maria in his doctoral project, which deals with the development of graphite/Si anodes for high energy density lithium-ion batteries. A wet-chemical, high throughput approach will be used to prepare anodes involving the direct growth of silicon in nanowire structure on graphite flakes with the aid of a tin catalyst. Furthermore, the doctoral project will focus on scaling up the nanowire on graphite synthesis protocol and pre-lithiation processes. The composite electrodes will undergo cycling in both half and full cells, with ex-situ analysis using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to observe morphological changes. It is also aimed to combine anodes with ether electrolytes and high voltage nickle rich lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide (NMC) cathodes in full cells.

StoRIES introduced its third mentor-mentee pair in Mentoring Programme in January 2024. Researcher Dr. Manuel Baumann from Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will support Irena Beloreshka from Faculty of Management in Technical University of Sofia in her PhD project with the title of ‘Research into and development of economic models for the construction of battery-based electricity storage systems’. The main objective of the work is hybrid projects involving a renewable generation asset and battery-based energy storage system in Bulgaria. The project is aimed to assess the business case, funding gap, and identify possible additional revenue streams for the storage array. The case of a standalone battery energy storage systems (BESS) to provide energy-storage-as-a-service in Bulgaria will also be explored as well as a suitable tariff structure and calculation. The research considers various technical options and configurations with reviewing regulatory frameworks, proposing measures to address any gaps identified.

If you need more information or would like to become one of the StoRIES mentors, please contact Pınar Arpaçay (KIT) and Olga Sumińska-Ebersoldt (KIT).