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ZenQuo

About

ZenQuo began in a battery lab at UNSW Sydney

Three years of work on a problem that had kept zinc out of the market for decades - and a founder who had taken this chemistry to market once before.

Origin

How this started

Dr Dipan Kundu had spent more than a decade on the problem. His doctoral work was at ETH Zürich; his postdoctoral work at the University of Waterloo was with Professor Linda Nazar, one of the most decorated battery scientists in the world. In 2016 they published a paper in Nature Energy that helped define the modern field of aqueous zinc-ion batteries - and a year earlier, Kundu had already co-founded a company in Canada to commercialise the work.

He arrived at UNSW in 2019 knowing exactly which problem stood between zinc and the market. Zinc anodes corrode and grow dendrites, and the accepted fix - drowning the electrolyte in organic additives - traded away the advantages that made zinc worth pursuing.

Working with Dr Priyank Kumar, whose group models materials computationally, and Dr Yuan Shang, the team spent three years on the problem. Kumar's group screened candidate molecules with density functional theory and machine learning, modelling which would form a stable protective film on zinc. Shang built and tested the cells. What emerged was an additive that works at around 1% of the electrolyte - enough to stop corrosion and dendrites, little enough to leave the electrolyte 99% water.

The result was a five- to twenty-fold improvement in cycle life. UNSW published the work in Advanced Materials in January 2024. In December that year, with Uniseed leading the founding investment, ZenQuo was incorporated to take it to market.

Team

Who is building it

  • Portrait of Dr Dipan Kundu

    Dr Dipan Kundu

    Co-founder

    Senior Lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney. Leads the Laboratory for Battery Research and Innovation.

    Over ten years in electrochemical energy storage across lithium-ion, sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur, aqueous zinc-ion and solid-state chemistries.

    PhD at ETH Zürich under Professor Reinhard Nesper; postdoctoral research at the University of Waterloo with Professor Linda F. Nazar; SNSF Ambizione Group Leader at ETH Zürich. At UNSW since 2019.

    Lead author of the 2016 Nature Energy paper that helped establish the modern aqueous zinc-ion battery field, and of the field's two Joule roadmap reviews. Member and newsletter editor of the Australian Battery Society.

    He has done this before

    Kundu was founder and CTO of Salient Energy in Canada, a zinc-ion battery company spun out of his own postdoctoral work, which is still operating today. ZenQuo is his second company in the same chemistry.

  • Portrait of Dr Priyank Vijaya Kumar

    Dr Priyank Vijaya Kumar

    Co-founder

    Scientia Senior Lecturer, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney. Leads the computational materials design group (CODE Lab).

    PhD from MIT in Materials Science and Engineering under Professor Jeffrey C. Grossman, working closely with Professor Angela Belcher's group. Marie Curie Fellow at ETH Zürich with Professor David J. Norris. B.Tech from IIT Madras in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering.

    Specialises in first-principles methods - density functional theory and time-dependent DFT - and machine learning applied to materials discovery.

    In ZenQuo's technology, his group's computational screening is what identified which additive molecules would form a stable film on zinc.

  • Dr Yuan Shang

    Lead inventor

    To do, before launch: confirm formal title and role with the client - his ZenQuo position is not public. No photograph available.

    Named inventor on both of ZenQuo's patent families, and first author on the core publications: the 2024 Advanced Materials additive paper, the 2025 Energy & Environmental Science paper on π-interactive additives, and the 2026 Nature Communications paper on manganese dioxide cathode chemistry.

    Guest editor of a special issue on aqueous zinc-ion batteries in Inorganics.

Beyond the founding team, the Laboratory for Battery Research and Innovation runs a bench of researchers working on aqueous zinc-ion, lithium metal, sodium-ion and solid-state batteries, several of them recent best-poster winners at Australian battery symposia.

To do, before launch: confirm current headcount, titles, and whether a commercial lead or CEO has been appointed

Work with us

Investment, manufacturing and licensing, pilots and deployment, or research and careers - there is a route for each.

Contact ZenQuo
ZenQuo

Powering the future with safe low-cost storage.

Sydney, NSW, Australia

LinkedIn

Enquiries

  • d.kundu@unsw.edu.au
  • Room 203, Energy Lab
    E8 Science and Engineering Building
    UNSW Sydney NSW 2052

Acknowledgement of Country

ZenQuo acknowledges the Bidjigal people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which our work is carried out, and pays respect to Elders past and present.

© 2026 ZenQuo To do, before launch: ABN