On February 26^th, the international periodical Advanced Functional Materials published the latest research result of Professor Yang Jiakuan’s team from the Department of Environment Science and Engineering. The paper is titled as Synthesis of Nanostructured PbO@C Composite Derivedfrom Spent Lead-Acid Battery for Next-Generation Lead-Carbon Battery,Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018：1705294，doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201870056, and it was also selected to be on the inner cover. The paper is co-first-authored by PH.D student Hu Yuchen and Prof. Hu Jingping, Professor Yang Jiakuan is the co-responding author.

The research team successfully build a new way of recycling used lead-acid batteries: recycle used lead-acid batteries by wet process so they can be directly applied; it revealed the fact that the compound nano-structure PbO@C composite can stimulate the capillary percolation of the sulfuric acid anodizing electrolyte in the negative active material in the lead-carbon batteries , and can help the recycle of HRPSoC of the power batteries. This research is expected to solve the environmental pollution problems caused by the volatilization of conventional lead made by pyrogenic process and polluted air emission. Lead-carbon is recognized as the next generation of lead-acid cell and this research result shows the new blueprint of the sustainable development of high-performance power batteries.

The research is financially supported by the National Natural Science Fund (50804017), Hubei Excellent Young Scholars Fund (2011CDA083), International Cooperation Project of Wuhan Bureau of Technology (2014030709020313), and the National “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” for Technology Support (2014BAC03B00), etc..