Our Team

We are a new group at Loyola University Chicago working in synthetic battery material discovery and development.

June 11, 2024

1–2 minutes

We are a new group at Loyola University Chicago working in synthetic battery material discovery and development.

PBEnergyLab NEWS

October 2025[ECS Conference]: PBEnergyLab members were active at the 248th ECS (Electrochemical Society) Meeting with invited talks (Prof. Banerjee-D03-1245: Mechanistic Insights into Quantum Dot Transformations for Enhancement in Ionic Conductivity in Solid Li-ion Battery Electrolytes) and poster presentations!

September 2025[AIChE Conference]: Prof. Banerjee participated in the 7th AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) Battery and Energy Storage Conference at Argonne National Laboratory

September 2025[New members]: Welcome Christina, Cain, Haley and Roger to the group!

August 2025[Research Support Grant]: PBEnergyLab received Research Support Grant Competition Award for project “ Advanced Structural and Compositional Characterization of Colloidal Copper Boron Selenide Nanocrystals for Superionic Conductors.”

August 2025[New members]: Welcome Hritvik to the group!

July 2025[New Publication]: PBEnergyLab’s second manuscript is published in Nano Energy (Journal CiteScore of 30.4)! Congrats to all student and postdoc co-authors! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211285525007104 We performed a comprehensive review on aspects of charge (both electronic and ionic) transport in functional ligand capped nanocrystals and nanoclusters for energy applications.

July 2025[Farewell to lab member]: PBEnergyLab bids farewell to Yunhao Xu who graduated with a BS/MS dual degree! In his time with our lab he has synthesized several libraries of complex chalcogenide nanocrystals spanning various new compositions, metastable crystal phases and stabilized in peculiar morphologies. Our lab will be busy for a while in studying these compounds for energy applications with various advanced material and electrochemical techniques that we are currently setting up in our lab and beyond! We wish Yunhao the best in his next chapter with med school!

June 2025[Synchrotron visit]: Postdoc Niket Powar visited Argonne’s newly upgraded APS synchrotron as a participant in the CCP4/APS School in Macromolecular Crystallography 2025 workshop to obtain some insights into data collection using macromolecular beamline setup on our lab’s samples.

June 2025[New Publication]: PBEnergyLab’s first manuscript is published in Small Structures (Journal CiteScore of 19.4)! Congrats to all student and postdoc co-authors! https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sstr.202500238

April 2025[Awards]: Three students from PBEnergyLab received competitive fellowships or national recognition! Congratulations to Simran and Isabella for their 2025-26 Mulcahy and 2025 Provost fellowships, and to Yunhao for his The American Institute of Chemists 2025 Student Award!

April 2025[New Manuscript]: Our group submitted the first manuscript since inception on the synthesis of CuBSe2 as precursor templates for lithiated versions, for use as potential superionic conducting materials in Li-ion batteries! Congrats to all lab members who worked on this study!

March 2025[Invited Talk]: Prof. Banerjee gave an invited talk at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science-Bengaluru. More information can be found here: https://sscu.iisc.ac.in/special-seminar-engineering-quantum-materials-for-enhanced-safety-and-performance-in-solid-battery-electrolytes/

Feb 2025[New Member]: PBEnergyLab welcomes postdoctoral researcher Niket!

Dec 2024[New Member]: PBEnergyLab welcomes postdoctoral researcher Oluwaseyi!

Nov 2024[New Member]: PBEnergyLab welcomes neuroscience freshman Owen!

Oct 2024[DOE Feature]: PBEnergyLab PI Prof. Banerjee’s entry to Argonne National Lab’s 2024 Art of Science using transmission electron microscopy image acquired while at Argonne on halide perovskite nanomaterials has been included in a mural exhibit in the Department of Energy building in Washington, D.C., outside the secretary’s office. See the mural below.

Oct 2024[Facilities]: PBEnergyLab members are excited to become regular users at the Integrated Molecular Structure Education and Research Center (IMSERC) at Northwestern facility!

Oct 2024[New Members]: PBEnergyLab welcomed a total of six new Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate and pre-med undergraduate students! Welcome to the lab!

Aug 2024[Launch]: Progna is excited to start her independent laboratory as a tenure-track professor at Loyola University Chicago this month! The “PBEnergyLab”, will be working on designing batteries to be non-combustible, cost-effective, efficient: and built with elements sustainably sourced within the US. We will be actively researching the discovery and development of new battery chemistries to realize this significant and timely solution to the current crisis faced by the U.S. domestic energy sector.

Aug 2024: Progna completed her postdoctoral training at the Argonne National Laboratory with Dr. Elena Shevchenko earlier this month. As a core-postdoc at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, she led projects on a broad range of synthesis-driven discovery initiatives looking for unconventional phases in nanostructured inorganic energy materials: to design and develop efficient and non-combustible battery chemistries. She coupled these synthetic initiatives with detailed mechanistic studies of structural transformations in material classes spanning chalcogenides, perovskites, MXenes and hybrid organic/inorganic systems using Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source beamlines. She is grateful to train and consistently utilize various electron microscopy tools, and many other instruments while at Argonne. There are many mentors and collaborators Progna is grateful to throughout her academic training, spanning five university degrees in five areas of the physical sciences: and two continents, and in my research career at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories. Of particular mention is her PhD advisor Prashant Jain at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who helped her transform from a Department of Physics University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student into a chemistry researcher.

May 2024: Progna’s latest first-author article from her postdoc work at Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory discusses the discovery of a new phase at high pressures in model solid electrolyte nanomaterials. Using the atomic level tailoring method called “cation exchange”, faceted nanocrystals and 2D nanoplatelets of copper selenides were synthesized through wet colloidal techniques. Next, the GSECARS high pressure beamline at Advanced Photon Source was utilized to squeeze these materials using a diamond anvil cell, and obtain x-ray diffraction patterns at various pressures (GPa range). Phase transitions were observed from the zinc blende to a CsCl-type structure above 4 GPa. These results are important for the design of energy materials for high stability under extreme environments. Results are published in Nano Letters !

May 2024: Progna signed off on joining Loyola University Chicago as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of Chemistry & Biochemistry! Here’s to new adventures!

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