On 27 and 28 October, the ECOBAT team gathered for two full days of filming to create our project’s video.
We decided to produce the video ourselves because the project is lucky to have talented people on board. Pierre Beaujean is highly skilled with filming and editing, while Johannes Ingenmey creates professional animations that show molecules and atoms in motion, and Liuba Lukina took on the producer’s role.
The first day of filming took place at the laboratories of Professor Alex Vlad in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. These labs are world-class facilities for battery research and provided the perfect setting to show how cutting-edge experiments are carried out. On the second day, we filmed at MTM, the Materials Engineering Department of KU Leuven, home to the research group of Professor Jan Fransaer.
Throughout the two days, ECOBAT researchers tried to explain their work in clear and accessible language. Battery science is not easy, and we made a real effort to try and open this complex world to a wider audience.
The video features:
- Robert Markowski (UC Louvain), explaining the ECOBAT project and the basics of how batteries work.
- Wouter Monnens (KU Leuven), discussing alternative battery systems based on calcium.
- Taniya Purkait (UC Louvain), presenting her research on anodeless batteries and coordination polymers.
- Johannes Ingenmey (UniBonn), showing how computer simulations help us study electrolytes.
- Zhenyu Zhou (KUL), talking about anode-free lithium, sodium, and potassium batteries.
- Pierre Beaujean (UNamur), explaining how supercomputer-based quantum chemistry simulations reveal what happens inside batteries at the molecular level.
As the ECOBAT project approaches its conclusion on 31 December 2025, we are glad that this video will reflect our journey and how we have worked together. We also hope it will inspire the general public, and maybe even encourage young people to explore materials engineering, chemical engineering, or chemistry, and help build the sustainable batteries of the future.
Stay tuned. The final video is on the way, and we cannot wait to share it with you!