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Dr Richard G A Wills PhD

Associate Professor

Richard is a Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Southampton. His research interests are focussed on electrochemical energy storage and integration of renewable energy technologies. Specific research areas include redox flow batteries, lead acid batteries, fuel cells and electrode materials. He has secured DTI, TSB, EU, British Council, MoD and industrially funded research projects. He was presented with the Dave Rice award in 2007 for the advancement of lead acid batteries and has published several influential papers and chapters on redox flow batteries and electrode materials.

BSc (Hons): Chemistry, University of Durham

MRes: Bio-Inorganic Chemistry, University of Nottingham. The Synthesis and Characterisation of Mono Ene-1,2-Dithiolate Molybdenum Nitrosyl Complexes

PhD: Electrochemistry, University of Southampton. A lead-acid flow battery for utility scale energy storage and load levelling

Research

Publications

Contact

Research interests

chemical and Electrochemical techniques
energy conversion
electrode materials
redox flow batteries

Research group

Energy Technology

Research project(s)

NECOBAUT: iron-air redox flow battery

Normally iron corrodes when exposed to air and humidity and has to be protected by painting it, using corrosion inhibitors or by passing a cathodic current through it (cathodic protection). These methods avoid the oxidation of iron into a rusty iron oxide. However, in this project, a novel investigation of the oxidation of iron, combined with the reduction of oxygen is used to generate energy.

ALION, A Low-Cost Aluminium-Ion Battery

H2020 – Aluminium Ion Batteries (Grant No: 646286)

JUICE Joint UK-India Clean Energy Centre (EP/P003605/1)

Buoyancy propulsion system for an Unmanned Air System (UAS): Phoenix (ref: 102379)

RELCoBatt: Reclaimed Electrolyte, Low Cost Flow Battery

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Articles

Book Chapters

Li, X., Ponce de Leon, C., Walsh, F. C., Wills, R. G. A., & Pletcher, D. (2015). Zinc-based flow batteries for medium- and large-scale energy storage. In C. Menictas, M. Skyllas-Kazacos, & T. M. Lim (Eds.), Advances in Batteries for Medium and Large-Scale Energy Storage, 1st Edition Types and Applications (pp. 293-315). (Woodhead Publishing Series in Energy). Woodhead Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-78242-013-2.00008-X
Wills, R. G. A., & Walsh, F. C. (2006). Electroplating for protection against wear. In B. Mellor (Ed.), Surface Coatings for Protection Against Wear (1 ed.). Woodhead Publishing Limited.
Pletcher, D., Walsh, F. C., & Wills, R. G. A. (1970). Flow batteries. In Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources (pp. 745-749). Elsevier.
Watt-Smith, M. J., Wills, R. G. A., & Walsh, F. C. (1970). Secondary batteries - flow systems. In Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources (pp. 438-443). Elsevier.

Conferences

Fraser, E. J., Wills, R., & Cruden, A. (2020). The use of gold impregnated carbon-polymer electrodes with the soluble lead flow battery. Paper presented at 4th Annual CDT Conference in Energy Storage and Its Applications , Southampton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2020.02.023
Zhu, T., Lot, R., & Wills, R. G. A. (2019). Optimization of dual energy storage system for high-performance electric vehicles. In 2018 IEEE Vehicle Power and Propulsion Conference: VPPC 2018 [8604961] (IEEE Conferences). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/VPPC.2018.8604961
Sun, S. I., Chipperfield, A., Kiaee, M., & Wills, R. (2018). Financial and environmental multi-objective optimisation of a revenue-stacking solar+battery farm. Poster session presented at Energy Storage Research Symposium, Adelaide, Australia.
Sun, S. I., Kiaee, M., Norman, S., & Wills, R. (2018). Self-sufficiency ratio: an insufficient metric for domestic PV-battery systems? In Energy Procedia (Vol. 151, pp. 150-157). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2018.09.040
Sun, S. I., Kiaee, M., Chipperfield, A., & Wills, R. (2018). Techno-economic and environmental analysis of second-life batteries compared to new in revenue-stacking network-constrained solar PV farm. Energy Systems conference, .
Wallis, L., & Wills, R. (2014). Anodes – Technology Review. Paper presented at AIP Conference 2014, .

Journal Special Issue

Fraser, E. J., Kahanda Koralage, J. R. D., & Wills, R. (2021). A two dimensional numerical model of the membrane-divided soluble lead flow battery. Energy Reports, 7(2), 49-55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.02.056

Report

McKinlay, C. J., Turnock, S., Hudson, D., Wang, Y., Wills, R., Dbouk, W., & Teagle, D. (Accepted/In press). The role of hydrogen in achieving Net Zero: a shipping perspective. University of Southampton.

Reviews

Krishna, M., Fraser, E. J., Wills, R. G. A., & Walsh, F. C. (2018). Developments in soluble lead flow batteries and remaining challenges: An illustrated review. Journal of Energy Storage, 15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2017.10.020
Khor, A., Leung, P., Mohamed, M. R., Flox, C., Xu, Q., An, L., Wills, R. G. A., Morante, J. R., & Shah, A. A. (2018). Review of zinc-based hybrid flow batteries: From fundamentals to applications. Materials Today Energy, 8, 80-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtener.2017.12.012

Dr Richard G A Wills
Engineering, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton. SO17 1BJ United Kingdom

Room Number: 7/5015

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