Sen Xin

Biography

Sen Xin received his doctoral degree in physical chemistry in 2013. From 2015 to 2019, he conducted postdoctoral research under the supervision of Professor John Bannister Goodenough at the University of Texas at Austin, mainly working on electrode materials and solid electrolytes for rechargeable lithium batteries.

In 2019 he joined the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as a full professor and started his independent research. He showed a broad interest on electrochemistry and materials chemistry, electrolyte solvation chemistry, electrode interface chemistry, energetic materials chemistry, stable isotope chemistry and isotope effects of rechargeable battery systems. He revealed, according to the classic physicochemical “system-environment” model, spatial confinement effect that governs the electrochemical reactions between chalcogen-element-based cathodes (S, Se, Te and their solid solution compounds) and Li/Na metal anodes in a rechargeable metal-chalcogen battery.

Based on the new effect, he proposed strategies to stabilize electrochemical reactions and facilitate charge transfer at the electrode-electrolyte interface, and managed to build advanced Li-S batteries with a high specific energy and a long cycle life. He also pioneered investigations into electrochemical isotope effects during electrode reactions of rechargeable metal-sulfur, aqueous and lithium-ion batteries, and established innovative electrochemical approaches to separate natural stable isotopes such as ¹H/²H, ⁶Li/⁷Li and ³²S/³⁴S. These tools are essential for interdisciplinary research in nuclear science, biomedicine and beyond.

Dr Xin has published 3 book chapters and more than 210 peer-reviewed articles on Science, Science Advances, Nature Portfolio Journals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie and other journals, with a total citation of more than 33,000 and an H-index of 94, and honoured by Clarivate the “Highly Cited Researcher” of year 2019 to 2025. He has filed 4 PCT patent applications and 41 Chinese invention patents, of which 25 have been granted in China, the United States, Japan and other countries worldwide.

Dr Xin was awarded Wiley China Highly Contribution Author 2023-2025, ACS Energy and Fuels Raising Stars (2025), RSC Frontiers Emerging Investigator (2023), Excellence Prize for CAS “Hundred Talents Project” Final Assessment (2023), Chinese Chemical Society Prize for Young Scientists (2022) and Young Scientists Prize of Chinese Society of Electrochemistry (2021), and was selected into Xiaomi Young Talents Program in 2024. He was elected a Senior Member of Chinese Chemical Society in 2025 and a Member of the Professional Committee for Rare Earth Energy Materials, Chinese Society of Rare Earths in 2024. He has served as Session Chair for the 2025 Beijing Conference on Molecular Sciences and the 17th International Symposium on Hydrogen & Energy.

Over the years, he actively participated in major international and domestic academic conferences including ACS Annual Meeting, International Conference on Energy Storage Materials and National Congress on Electrochemistry, and delivered more than 50 invited talks and 20 keynote speeches.

RSC journal affiliations

• Editorial Board Member, EES Batteries