Linda Nazar

Linda Faye Nazar OC FRSC FRS is a Senior Canada Research Chair in Solid State Materials and Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. She develops materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion. Nazar demonstrated that interwoven composites could be used to improve the energy density of lithium–sulphur batteries. She was awarded the 2019 Chemical Institute of Canada Medal.

Linda Nazar FRS
Born	Linda Faye Nazar
Alma mater	University of British Columbia University of Toronto
Awards	Chemical Institute of Canada Medal
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Waterloo Exxon Research and Engineering Company
Website	Nazar Group Lab

Early life and education

Nazar studied chemistry at the University of British Columbia, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1978.[1] She was inspired to study chemistry after being inspired by her first year professor.[2] Her father had trained as a scientist and ran his own jewellery making business.[2] Nazar joined the University of Toronto for her graduate studies, and completed a PhD under the supervision of Geoffrey Ozin in 1984. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Exxon Research and Engineering Company.[3] She joined the University of Waterloo in the late 1980s, when she became interested in electrochemistry and Inorganic chemistry.[2]

Research and career

Nazar works in materials chemistry at the University of Waterloo, where she designs energy storage devices and electrochemical systems. Her research group create new materials and nanostructures for lithium–sulfur batteries, including interwoven composites. She develops structural probes to understand how the morphology of materials that are capable of charge/ ionic redox processes impact their functions. These techniques include nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electrochemistry, AC Impedance Spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements.[4][5] Nazar was a founding member of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology.[3] Nazar is recognised as being a "leading authority in advanced materials".[6] She was awarded a Canada Research Chair in 2004, which was renewed in 2008 and 2012.[7][8][9] In 2009 Nazar joined the California Institute of Technology as a More Distinguished Scholar.[3][10] In 2013 she was awarded a $1.8 million fellowship from the National Research Council to investigate energy storage materials for automotive applications.[11]

Nazar is particularly interested in storage materials that go beyond lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, zinc ion batteries and magnesium-ion batteries.[12][13][14][15] Lithium-ion batteries are the battery of choice in hybrid electric vehicles, but concerns have arisen about the global supply of lithium. Her early work developed porous carbon architectures as frameworks for cathodes, enhancing their conductivity and discharge capacity.[16] She demonstrated that interwoven carbon composites could be used to improve the energy density of lithium–sulphur batteries.[4] She showed it was possible to create mesoporous carbon frameworks that constrain the grown of sulphur nanofillers, which improved energy storage and reversibility.[16]

Nazar calculated the low-cost lithium–sulphur batteries could take electric cars twice as far as current lithium-ion technologies.[2] Sulphur is an abundant material that can be used to replace cobalt oxide in lithium-ion batteries.[17] Unfortunately, sulphur can dissolve into the electrolyte solution, and be reduced by electrons to form polysulphides.[18] They are also susceptible to high internal resistance and capacity fading on cycling.[17] These challenges can be overcome by creating nanostructures in the electrodes.[17] Interwoven composites can also be made from manganese dioxide, which stabilise polysuplphides in lithium–sulphur batteries.[18] Manganese dioxide reduces sulphides via a surface-bound polythiosulphanates, and can withstand 2,000 discharge cycles without the loss of capacitance.[2][18][19] She has also developed lithium oxygen batteries, which are lightweight with high energy density.[20][21] In lithium oxygen batteries, superoxide and peroxide can act to degrade the cells; limiting their lifetime.[21] If the electrolyte is replace with a molten salt and the porous cathode with a bifunctional metal oxide, the peroxide does not form.[21] Nazar has worked on supercapacitors and polyanion materials.[22][23]

She was made a Professor at the University of Waterloo in 2016 and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Solid State Energy Materials.[24] Since 2014 Nazar has served on the Board of Directors of the International Meeting on Li-Batteries.[25] She serves on the editorial boards of the journals Angewandte Chemie, Energy & Environmental Science and the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.[26][27]

Awards and honours

Her awards and honours include;

• 1978 Royal Society of Chemistry Undergraduate Award[28]
• 2010 Canadian Society for Chemistry Rio Tinto Alcan Award for Electrochemistry[29]
• 2011 International Battery Association Award[30]
• 2011 Royal Society of Canada Fellowship[31][32]
• 2012 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Distinguished Women in Chemistry[33]
• 2013 Society of German Chemists August-Wilhelm-von-Hofmann Lectureship
• 2014 Web of Science Most Highly Cited Researchers[34]
• 2014 Thomson Reuters World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds
• 2015 Officer of the Order of Canada[35]
• 2017 University of Waterloo Outstanding Performance Award
• 2018 Thomson Reuters Most Highly Cited Researchers[36]
• 2019 Chemical Institute of Canada Medal[37]
• 2020 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society[38]

Patents

Nazar's patents include;

• 2002 New electrode materials for a rechargeable electrochemical cell[39]
• 2007 Mixed Lithium/Sodium Ion Iron Fluorophosphate Cathodes for Lithium Ion Batteries[40]
• 2009 Sulfur-carbon material[41]
• 2011 Multicomponent electrodes for rechargeable batteries[42]
• 2014 Composites comprising mxenes for cathodes of lithium sulphur cells[43]
• 2015 Electrode materials for rechargeable zinc cells and batteries produced therefrom[44]

References

1. "PRISM/PCCM SEMINAR SERIES SPRING 2017: Linda Nazar, University of Waterloo". PRISM. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
2. February 2016, Rebecca Trager9. "An energetic chemist". Chemistry World. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
3. "Prof. Linda Nazar". Israel National Research Center for Electrochemical Propulsion. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
4. "Linda Nazar - Joint Center for Energy Storage Research". Retrieved 2019-04-01.
5. "Nazar Research Group | Facilities". www.science.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
6. "Waterloo Daily Bulletin, September 9, 2011". bulletin.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
7. "University of Waterloo awarded six Canada Research Chairs". Waterloo News. 2012-03-22. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
8. "Nazar Research Group | People". www.science.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
9. Government of Canada, Industry Canada (2012-11-29). "Canada Research Chairs". www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
10. "Distinguished Speaker Seminar – Professor Linda Nazar | Chemical and Biological Engineering". www.chbe.ubc.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
11. "Waterloo research into new battery technology receives government support - Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy". wise.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
12. "PRISM/PCCM SEMINAR SERIES SPRING 2017: Linda Nazar, University of Waterloo". PRISM. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
13. Berkeley Lab (2011-08-16), Linda Nazar: Energy Materials & Climate Change, retrieved 2019-04-01
14. "Building better batteries". Waterloo Stories. 2012-08-23. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
15. Nazar, Linda F.; Vajargah, Shahrzad Hosseini; Duffort, Victor; Adams, Brian D.; Kundu, Dipan (October 2016). "A high-capacity and long-life aqueous rechargeable zinc battery using a metal oxide intercalation cathode". Nature Energy. 1 (10): 16119. Bibcode:2016NatEn...116119K. doi:10.1038/nenergy.2016.119. ISSN 2058-7546. OSTI 1469690.
16. Nazar, Linda F.; Lee, Kyu Tae; Ji, Xiulei (2009). "A highly ordered nanostructured carbon–sulphur cathode for lithium–sulphur batteries". Nature Materials. 8 (6): 500–506. doi:10.1038/nmat2460. ISSN 1476-4660. PMID 19448613.
17. Nazar, Linda F.; Ji, Xiulei (2010-11-02). "Advances in Li–S batteries". Journal of Materials Chemistry. 20 (44): 9821–9826. doi:10.1039/B925751A. ISSN 1364-5501.
18. "Chemists one step closer to new generation of electric car battery". phys.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
19. "One step closer to a new generation of electric car battery". Printed Electronics World. 2015-01-19. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
20. "Dr. Linda Nazar and team create long-life lithium-oxygen battery". Sustainable Skies. 2018-09-28. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
21. "Chemists make breakthrough on road to creating a rechargeable lithium-oxygen battery". Chemistry. 2018-08-23. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
22. "Nazar Research Group | Research". www.science.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
23. Choi, Nam-Soon; Chen, Zonghai; Freunberger, Stefan A.; Ji, Xiulei; Sun, Yang-Kook; Amine, Khalil; Yushin, Gleb; Nazar, Linda F.; Cho, Jaephil (2012). "Challenges Facing Lithium Batteries and Electrical Double-Layer Capacitors". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 51 (40): 9994–10024. doi:10.1002/anie.201201429. ISSN 1521-3773. PMID 22965900.
24. "Prominent Waterloo chemist appointed University Professor at Spring Convocation". Chemistry. 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
25. SG8 9AZ. [phone], Black Pig Ltd, The Sty, 47 Upper King Street, Royston, Hertfordshire. "17th International Meeting on Lithium Batteries". Johnson Matthey Technology Review. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
26. "Energy and Environmental Science editorial board members". www.rsc.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
27. "Linda Nazar". Chemistry. 2012-04-03. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
28. "CIC Medal | The Chemical Institute of Canada". www.cheminst.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
29. "Rio Tinto Alcan Award | The Chemical Institute of Canada". www.cheminst.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
30. "(MSE 2018 Dorn Lecture) "Beyond Li-Ion: From Solid State to Aqueous Electrochemical Energy Storage Batteries" | Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN)". isen.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
31. "Waterloo Daily Bulletin, September 9, 2011". bulletin.uwaterloo.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
32. "Nazar, Linda | The Royal Society of Canada". rsc-src.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
33. "IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering" (PDF). IUPAC. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
34. "Waterloo chemist among world's most highly cited researchers". Science. 2014-08-01. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
35. "gg.ca". www.gg.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
36. "Highly Cited Researchers - The Most Influential Scientific Minds". HCR. Archived from the original on 2019-02-20. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
37. "Linda Nazar is awarded the 2019 Chemical Institute of Canada Medal". Science. 2019-02-08. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
38. "Linda Nazar | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
39. New electrode materials for a rechargeable electrochemical cell, retrieved 2019-04-01
40. Mixed Lithium/Sodium Ion Iron Fluorophosphate Cathodes for Lithium Ion Batteries, 2007-11-27, retrieved 2019-04-01
41. Sulfur-carbon material, retrieved 2019-04-01
42. Multicomponent electrodes for rechargeable batteries, 2012-09-07, retrieved 2019-04-01
43. Composites comprising mxenes for cathodes of lithium sulfur cells, 2015-07-10, retrieved 2019-04-01
44. Composites comprising mxenes for cathodes of lithium sulfur cells, retrieved 2019-04-01