Shalini Divya is an Indian chemist and entrepreneur working in New Zealand, specialising in developing aluminium-ion battery technology as a commercial alternative to

lithium-ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy ...

. She is the co-founder of battery technology company TasmanIon. Divya was awarded a KiwiNet Breakthrough Innovator award in 2021.

Career

Divya was born and raised in India, and gained a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from

Delhi University The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

and a master's degree in chemistry at the Birla Institute of Technology in Mesra, India. She moved to New Zealand to undertake doctoral research, completing a PhD at the

MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (often simply called the MacDiarmid Institute) is a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence (New Zealand), Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) specialising in materials science ...

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

in 2021, under the supervision of Thomas Nann ( University of Newcastle, Australia) and Jim Johnston. Divya worked on selecting a suitable cathode element for non-aqueous aluminium-ion batteries. Divya co-founded company TasmanIon, of which she is also chief executive, with Thomas Nann in 2022. The company aims to commercialise the aluminium-ion battery technology developed by Divya. The batteries are intended to be more sustainable than lithium batteries as the components are more abundant, and are also easier to recycle. Aluminium ion batteries also do not need cobalt, avoiding the ethical problems of cobalt mining, and are safer as there is no risk of explosion. In 2021 Divya was awarded a KiwiNet Breakthrough Innovator award. TasmanIon was shortlisted for the inaugural Le Zero Innovation Award. TasmanIon was also selected as one of three participants in

Wellington City Council Wellington City Council is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority in New Zealand, governing the city of Wellington, the country's capital city and List of cities in New Zealand#City councils, third-largest city by popul ...

-supported Creative HQ Climate Response Accelerator programme.

Selected works

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References

External links

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Dr Shalini Divya - Breakthrough Innovator Finalist
', KiwiNet TV, Nov 30, 2021, via YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Divya, Shalini Living people New Zealand women scientists Delhi University alumni Victoria University of Wellington alumni New Zealand chief executives Indian emigrants to New Zealand