In recognition of his work on batteries, the International Society of Electrochemistry has awarded Joaquín Rodríguez-López the Zhaowu Tian Prize for Energy Electrochemistry.

The prize recognizes scientists under the age of 40 for recent achievements in the field of electrochemistry for energy. The annual award was donated to ISE by Chinese scientists to honor former ISE Vice President Prof. Zhaowu Tian.

In 2014, the Rodríguez-López research group began collaborating with the Joint Center for Energy Storage (JCESR), a U.S. Department of Energy Innovation Hub, working on technology that would improve nonaqueous redox flow batteries (NRFBs), which are emerging technologies for grid energy storage. But this promising technology faces challenges from low current density, low energy efficiency and low cycle life.

The Rodríguez-López group is working on these challenges by powering a new NRFB concept based on size-exclusion of Redox-Active Polymers (RAPs). Their research is also simultaneously addressing a critical gap in the fundamental understanding of soluble redox polymers and opening new avenues in the application of their use beyond energy storage.

Rodríguez-López is also affiliated with the Materials Research Lab and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

ISE was founded in 1949 by leading European and American Electrochemists to serve the growing needs of electrochemistry in becoming a modern scientific discipline. Since then the association has evolved and now comprises about 3,000 individual members and more than 20 Corporate Members (teaching institutions, non-profit-making research organizations and learned societies) and Corporate Sustaining Members (industrial and commercial organizations). Its membership comes from more than 70 countries and is organized in over 40 regional sections. ISE is a non-profit-making organization with its seat in Lausanne, Switzerland.