When other students were still thinking hard about the research topic, she had already determined the future of her research on new batteries; after coming abroad, when others were at a loss for a professional problem, she touched the key to the success of the research of sodium-ion batteries in advance; and when she achieved success and the United States was willing to pay her millions of dollars a year, she once again took a step ahead and returned to China as a university professor.
This female scientist who always walks ahead of others in everything is called Yuya. Today, let's talk to you about what is the mystery of the sodium-ion battery studied by Youya? And she can obviously make a splash in the United States, so why should she return to China to become a teacher?
Speaking of Yuya, there are always people who will be preconceived that a girl with such a good name will be a slow and elegant girl, at the same time, she has an outstanding appearance, and she has indeed met many suitors on the road to study. But in fact, Yuya not only specializes in science that girls are not good at, but also a complete "acute child", no matter what she does, she must do her best in the shortest time.
In 1988, Yuya was born into a relatively wealthy family to engineer parents. Unlike other girls who wear flower skirts and braid dolls from a young age, Yuya holds "hardcore" toys such as compasses and rulers in her hand all day.
Because of this, as early as elementary school, Yuya aspired to become a scientist, and with this vision, her grades have always been excellent. After entering junior high school and being exposed to the subject of chemistry, she was fascinated by all kinds of wonderful chemical reactions, and after the college entrance examination, she was also admitted to the materials department of a key university in the mainland with excellent results.
For recent high school graduates, entering the university means learning more difficult subjects and digging deeper knowledge, which makes many people lose their interest in learning before, however, Yuya who enters the college campus is very relaxed, because compared with high school, she can not only learn more exquisite chemical knowledge, but also conduct research that she is interested in without distraction.
Because of her outstanding professional achievements, as early as the sophomore year, Yuya has already won the whole hospital. At that time, not only was the classroom teacher very optimistic about this flexible girl, even the dean often put her efforts on the lips, and because of this, after graduating from undergraduate, the school guaranteed him to enter the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for further study.
As we all know, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the highest institution where mainland scientists work, and Yuya, who entered the Institute of Chemistry, not only greatly improved the level of experiments, but also published several papers that impressed the academic community. However, just as graduate school was about to graduate, Yuya faced a small challenge.
Until then, she had been conducting more general chemistry research, but after graduating with a master's degree, she had to choose a definite path to move forward. On the one hand, Yuya is very fond of chemistry subjects, and choosing a certain path to explore means that it is necessary to give up some things; on the other hand, although the students at that time were also very entangled, most of them chose lithium batteries as the development direction, because this traditional battery research is less difficult and easier to produce results.
However, Yuya does not think so, for her, the charm of creating new things is far greater than digging up old things. Therefore, after consulting the consent of the mentor, Yuya embarked on the road of developing sodium-ion batteries.
Talking about this, some friends may have questions, usually hear about the use of lithium batteries? Yuya studied sodium-ion batteries and would not have made this choice to prove herself.
In fact, Yuya's choice is not an impulsive move, but a very rational decision. As we all know, lithium batteries as a very good performance of the battery, since the invention of human beings, has occupied a place in life; at the same time, lithium batteries are very good in both performance and cost, which also makes scientists from all over the world study it more and more deeply, and the cost will naturally become lower and lower.
However, although the mainland is also a big mineral country, but the reserves of lithium are not satisfactory, as the saying goes, it is difficult for a woman to cook without rice, in case one day, lithium ore reserves are seriously insufficient, then the mainland's battery industry is likely to fall into the situation of being "stuck neck" by other countries.
In addition to the content of the earth's crust is more than 400 times that of lithium, sodium chloride in the ocean can be called an endless wealth. In fact, it can also be seen from this point that although Yuya is an "acute child" who says one thing and one thing, she actually looks at the problem very long-term.
However, just as Yuya decided on the direction of her research and stepped into the door of the laboratory, the first problem of studying sodium-ion batteries hit her. It turned out that unlike lithium batteries, the positive and negative electrodes of sodium-ion batteries were not conventional materials, and at that time, the mainland did not have much research progress in this field. In other words, she needs to start looking for materials from scratch, which means that Yuya, who has just graduated with a master's degree, has to face problems that many doctors can't solve.
Such problems also discouraged Yuya, but out of her love of science, she began to increase her workload, spending 10 hours in the laboratory without success for 15 hours, so that for a while, Yuya almost lived in the laboratory, only a few hours a day to wash and eat.
Yuya's desperation has frightened many brothers and sisters, and even gave her a nickname of "Iron Lady". You know, these scientists are known for their hard work, and Yuya can "disturb" them, which also shows from the side what kind of efforts to make achievements in the field of sodium batteries.
Fortunately, in 2015, Yuya successfully found a cathode material called Prussian blue, which can hold more sodium than other materials, enough to support the basic work of the battery. In other words, if the sodium-ion battery was only a theoretically feasible idea, then Yuya's research has made this idea a reality.
With outstanding contributions to this field, Yuya not only received her Doctorate, but was also sent to the University of Austin in Texas to pursue a postdoctoral study. Before she set off, the father of lithium batteries in the world today, the famous professor Goodenough, had asked to work with Yuya by name, in fact, it can be seen from this how important her research results are.
After landing in the United States, an interesting thing happened. Yuya said in an interview that before going to the United States, she originally thought that the laboratories in the United States were very tall, but after she came here, she found out that this was not the case at all. Not only is a lot of equipment not as advanced as the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but more importantly, the amount is not enough, and it is normal to want to use what instruments to queue for a week or two, which makes her very unaccustomed to acute children.
However, yuya did not relax her research on the project at all, and in the process of learning from the battery field, she also broadened her horizons. Yuya has previously completed the bottleneck in the use of sodium-ion batteries in China, and in the United States, she has successfully optimized the working time and energy density of the batteries.
Because of this, after completing her postdoctoral studies, Yuya has become a "household name" academic bull in the US battery industry, and many battery companies have thrown olive branches to her, and even one of them declared that as long as Yuya is willing to be a consultant, she will be offered an annual contract of $1.2 million.
I have to say that this company is very attractive in both sincerity and remuneration, but in the face of such rich conditions, Yuya did not even look at it. In 2019, after completing her last paper, Yuya returned directly to China and became a professor of chemistry at a major university.
Yuya's approach at that time made many people not understand that being a professor could earn a few dollars, and the corporate consultant could enjoy the incomparable glory and wealth without even sitting in the class. Of course, as we've talked about before, Yuya's love of science far outweighs money, not to mention that the mainland can provide a clearly larger platform for her than the conditions set by the United States, and that's why she's back.
Nowadays, although Youya's sodium-ion battery project is still under study, but because of the low cost and the characteristics of the production line can be used with lithium batteries, it is foreseeable that sodium-ion batteries will become a rival that lithium batteries cannot be underestimated, and at that time, the mainland has long been riding in this field.