Dr Daniel Commandeur

Daniel is a Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry & Chemical engineering, specialising in sustainable energy generation and storage. Daniel Completed his PhD in 2020, exploring solar hydrogen generation using water photolysis and perovskite photovoltaics under Dr Qiao Chen. Particularly looking into material synthesis for new electron transport materials.

He worked as a Research Fellow at University College London on an Innovate UK project from 2020 to 2021, looking at high power lithium ion battery electrode materials, synthesised at kg scale by continuous hydrothermal flow. It was during this time he began to appreciate the large dependence on critical materials, safety concerns and poor sustainability of lithium ion batteries. He then began work for the start up Superdielectrics Ltd working on safe and sustainable energy storage at the University of Surrey, under Prof Brendan Howlin.

In 2023 Daniel won a Surrey Future Fellowship to begin his independent research into sustainable battery technology, prioritising water-based electrolytes to prevent safety issues and sodium ion chemistry for greater sustainability. He maintains an interest in hydrogen generation through electrolysis, and is exploring dual-function batteries: lithium CO2 batteries which both store charge and trap CO2; desalination batteries which also can extract salt from seawater.