
The SENER Foundation has decided to present its Best Doctoral Thesis Award to Jaione Martínez de Ilarduya, from the University of the Basque Country, and a researcher from the company BCARE (a spin-off of CIC energiGUNE) for her thesis entitled Na-Ion Battery Development: From Electrode Processing Studies to the Heat Generation Model of a Monolayer Puch Cell. The work was supervised by professors Laida Otaegui Ameztegui and Monika Ortueta Aldama. The prize is worth 12,000 euros for the author of the thesis and 3,000 euros for the thesis directors.
In awarding the prize, the jury noted the solution proposed in the thesis to address the growing energy demand to supply mobile devices (telephones, laptops, etc.), and in innovative technologies such as electric or hybrid automotive vehicles, among many other applications.
In response to this demand for materials that can store energy safely and efficiently, the award-winning thesis focuses on the development of new electro-chemical sodium-ion batteries with improved durability, a battery type that is proposed as an energy storage solution that is safer and cheaper than current alternatives. Specifically, the jury underscored the experimental part of the thesis to demonstrate the possibilities of applying this technology.
After learning about the award, the author of the thesis expressed her “appreciation to the SENER Foundation for this award, which is a recognition of all the effort and hard work done during the thesis, and of all those people who have been involved in it in one way or another, and also for giving visibility to the current research projects.” Dr. Jaione Martínez de Ilarduya carried out her thesis at CIC energiGUNE, a Basque research center of reference in electrochemical and thermal energy storage, and after finishing it, she joined BCARE, a spin-off of CIC energiGUNE.
The thesis directors also pointed out “the importance of encouraging research among young people both in the university environment and in other agents in the field of science and technology, by institutions such as the SENER Foundation. Furthermore, they recognize the contribution to society of carrying out this type of research that seeks to improve people’s lives in some way.”
Through its Best Doctoral Thesis Award, the SENER Foundation aims to stimulate research at the highest level in the areas of science and technology in which the SENER group is active, namely, in the aerospace, infrastructure, energy and naval sectors. The SENER Foundation is expected to announce soon the tenth edition of the Best Doctoral Thesis Awards for works defended in 2020.