Sir Peter Bruce: Royal Society of Chemistry Longstaff Prize

Congratulations to Professor Sir Peter Bruce FRS, on the 2022 triennial Longstaff Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry.  This prize is awarded to an individual Royal Society of Chemistry member in recognition of their outstanding work to advance the science of chemistry.

Sir Peter is the Wolfson Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford.  Prior to taking up this role in 2014 he was the Wardlaw Professor of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews, and is a pioneer of the lithium-air battery and has elucidated the fundamental principles underpinning its operation.  In earlier work he overturned the long held belief that ionic conductivity was confined to amorphous polymers above their glass transition temperature, by discovering that crystalline polymer electrolytes could conduct ions.

Sir Peter's research embraces materials science, chemistry and electrochemistry, with a particular emphasis on energy storage.  Much of his work is concerned with lithium batteries, and his recent research has focused on three main areas; all-solid state battery, cathode materials and the lithium-air battery.  His work on solid-state batteries includes understanding the fundamental processes at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces that ultimately lead to cell failure, then using this new knowledge to overcome the barriers to the cell functioning.  In the area of cathode materials his work has concentrated on the synthesis and understanding of new materials for lithium and sodium-ion batteries.  Sir Peter is particularly interested in understanding the oxygen redox processes in high-capacity materials.