192: Chapter 192 High-Performance Battery Materials

"Hello, Professor Wu."

Zhao Yang extended his hand and greeted Professor Wu Kai.

"Dr. Zhao Yang, I've heard so much about you. That paper of yours in the Annals of Mathematics, and your recent activities at NIPS, have really made a thunderous impression."

Professor Wu Kai stood up with a warm smile, shook Zhao Yang's hand with both of his, and was very courteous. In academia, it is ultimately a place where the capable come first; Zhao Yang's achievements were enough to make people overlook his age.

The three of them sat back down.

Professor Wang Wenyuan picked up the teapot, poured a cup of water for Zhao Yang, and then got straight to the point.

"Xiao Zhao, the reason I called you over today is that Professor Wu's experiments have encountered some tricky data processing issues. They need a top-tier mathematics expert with a profound understanding of interdisciplinary studies to provide support."

Professor Wang Wenyuan looked at Zhao Yang and explained: "Professor Wu originally came to collaborate with our School of Mathematics' applied mathematics team. But after I reviewed the preliminary data requirements they provided, I realized that conventional statistical models and linear equations simply cannot handle data of that dimensionality.

Since your recent paper on computer fundamentals proved your ability to handle massive multi-dimensional variables, I immediately thought of you."

Zhao Yang turned to look at Professor Wu Kai.

"Professor Wu, what specific area is the experiment in?"

Zhao Yang asked directly, without beating around the bush.

Professor Wu Kai pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, his expression becoming serious.

"Dr. Zhao, we are currently working on the R&D of cathode materials for high-specific-energy power batteries. We are trying to optimize the material ratio of ternary lithium batteries and test the stability of their lattice structure during the charge-discharge process."

Professor Wu Kai took out several documents from his briefcase, placed them on the coffee table, and said to Zhao Yang.

"This is a portion of our data."

"Because there are simply too many variables in the battery R&D process, the combinations are an astronomical figure. Relying on traditional Fourier functions, it is impossible to perform systematic statistics."

Professor Wu Kai pointed to the chaotic 3D scatter plots in the documents, looked at Zhao Yang with a wry smile, and continued.

"Furthermore, current traditional chemical experimental analysis methods have hit a bottleneck. We have discovered that within a specific high-voltage range, the dissolution of transition metal ions and the precipitation of lattice oxygen present an extremely complex, highly non-linear relationship.

Existing materials science analysis software and mathematical analysis methods are simply unable to accurately isolate the core variables causing the rapid decay of battery capacity from this multi-dimensional chaotic data."

Professor Wu Kai looked at Zhao Yang and sighed.

"So we urgently need to build a brand new mathematical model. It needs to be able to handle massive experimental data, and preferably be backward compatible with crystallographic topological structures to help us find the optimal solution region between element doping ratios and electrochemical performance.

I wonder if Dr. Zhao is interested in this direction?"

Zhao Yang leaned back on the sofa, his expression unchanged.

After hearing Professor Wu Kai's description, he already roughly understood where the problem lay.

On the surface, this was a chemical engineering problem about finding the optimal ratio, but at its core, it was a typical problem of multi-variable partial differential equations.

Under the influence of various factors, this problem happened to lie at the intersection of mathematics, Informatics, and Chemistry.

For Zhao Yang, to quickly raise his Chemistry level, he had to participate in cutting-edge research projects and use concrete research results and papers in top-tier journals to obtain large experience rewards from the system.

If he could help solve the underlying algorithm problem for ternary lithium battery material ratios, not only could he publish in top materials science or Chemistry journals and gain a huge amount of Chemistry experience points.

More importantly, this had profound strategic significance for enhancing the country's core technological barriers in the new energy field.

Thinking of this, Zhao Yang did not hesitate at all.

"I can take on this data analysis and model building work."

Zhao Yang looked at Professor Wu Kai and gave a definitive answer.

Hearing that Zhao Yang had agreed, an obvious look of joy appeared on Professor Wu Kai's face. He knew very well that the young man before him possessed one of the most top-tier logical deduction brains in the country, and perhaps even the world. With his participation, the project's R&D progress would definitely see a qualitative leap.

"Thank you so much! Dr. Zhao, with your participation, our confidence in overcoming this material challenge has increased significantly."

Professor Wu Kai said in an excited tone.

"However, I have one condition." Zhao Yang interrupted Professor Wu Kai's pleasantries.

"Please go ahead, as long as the laboratory can meet it, we will fully cooperate." Professor Wu Kai immediately straightened his attitude.

"I want access to all of the laboratory's raw data."

Zhao Yang stated his requirement.

"Additionally, if the model I build successfully identifies the optimal doping ratio and is verified as effective, I need to retain the right to be the first author or corresponding author on any subsequent related academic papers."

Upon hearing this condition, Professor Wu Kai pondered for a moment, then nodded.

"Data access is no problem. Academic paper authorship is also no problem; after all, this is an achievement based on your mathematical model. The company's core demand is the commercial application of technical patents. As long as the patent ownership remains with the company, the honor of academic publication can completely belong to you."

Professor Wu Kai was very pragmatic in this regard. When enterprises do R&D, it is for products and profits. As long as they have the core technology, publishing papers is something they can just conveniently use as a favor to these top scholars.

"Then that's no problem." Zhao Yang nodded.

With the matter settled, the subsequent process proceeded very quickly.

Following Professor Wu Kai's request, after Zhao Yang signed a mutually beneficial contract with CATL.

Professor Wu Kai took a portable hard drive out of his briefcase and handed it to Zhao Yang.

"Dr. Zhao, this contains all our accumulated experimental run logs, XRD (X-ray diffraction) data, and electrochemical cycling test curves for the past three quarters. The data volume is quite large, about over 400 GB. You can take it back first to familiarize yourself with the data structure."

Zhao Yang took the portable hard drive and put it into his shoulder bag.

"This weekend, I will perform preliminary cleaning and processing of this historical data in my apartment."

Zhao Yang stood up.

"Next Monday morning, I will go to your Yanjing laboratory to see the specific experimental situation. At that time, I will need your chemical materials researchers to cooperate with me in calibrating the model parameters."

"No problem, I will send a car to Yanlin University to pick you up next Monday morning."

Professor Wu Kai also stood up, and the two shook hands again.

After leaving the School of Mathematical Sciences, Peking University, Zhao Yang returned directly to the Young Teachers Apartments at Beijing Forestry University.

After returning to the apartment, Zhao Yang plugged the portable hard drive into his computer.

He did not immediately view the data, but instead opened the Linux system terminal and, using his LV5 Informatics code refactoring skill, quickly wrote a small data cleaning script of a few dozen lines.