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Engineering

Dr Rachel McKerracher MSc, PhD

Experimental Officer

Dr Rachel McKerracher's photo

Dr Rachel McKerracher is an Experimental Officer working in the Engineering Materials group at the University of Southampton.

Rachel graduated with a Master’s degree in Chemistry, MChem (hons) from Oxford University in 2009, after which she joined the Energy Technology research group at the University of Southampton, where her PhD research into synthesis and hydrogen storage mechanisms of metal oxide nanotubes was completed in 2012. Following this, she undertook several postdoctoral research projects in the area of energy storage materials, battery construction and thermal runaway prevention. Her main research interests lie in improving the sustainability of materials used in batteries. In 2021 she moved to the Engineering Materials group to take up the post of Experimental Officer.

Research interests

Rachel’s main research interests centre on finding novel materials for energy storage devices that are sustainable and environmentally friendly. She is interested in decreasing the amount of toxic electronic waste and using 3D printing to create electronic components with high precision and minimal waste.

Research group

Engineering Materials

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

Technical support for Materials labs

Dr Rachel McKerracher
Engineering, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton. SO17 1BJ United Kingdom

Room Number : 5/1011

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