Tag: energy storage

A breakthrough in all-organic proton batteries for safer, sustainable energy storage

A breakthrough in all-organic proton batteries for safer, sustainable energy storage

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have developed a new type of rechargeable battery that uses protons (H⁺ ions) as charge carriers, offering a safer and more environmentally friendly alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries. 

Unlike traditional batteries that rely on metal ions, such as lithium or sodium, this innovative design harnesses protons for fast charge transfer and exceptional stability over thousands of cycles.

The researcher team led by Professor Chuan Zhao at UNSW’s School of Chemistry reported in the prestigious journal Angewandte Chemie the development of a novel small organic molecule called tetraamino-benzoquinone (TABQ), as a cathode material in this proton battery. Developed by PhD candidate Sicheng Wu and Professor Zhao, this TABQ molecules plays a crucial role in storing and transporting protons, leading to remarkable performance and long-term stability.

“Using this TABQ cathode material, we successfully built an all-organic proton battery that performs efficiently at both room temperature and sub-zero freezing temperatures,” said Professor Zhao in a media statement.

A key aspect of the research involved real-time monitoring of chemical changes during battery operation, achieved through advanced synchrotron infrared measurements. Dr Pimm Vongsvivut, Senior Scientist at the Australian Synchrotron’s Infrared Microspectroscopy (IRM) beamline, collaborated with this UNSW team to develop a custom in-situ electrochemical cell and monitoring technique. 

“Through this collaboration, we designed a tailored electrochemical cell and an in-situ monitoring approach to track chemical changes during charging and discharging cycles. Our synchrotron infrared technique provided direct chemical evidence confirming that the energy storage mechanism of TABQ relies on a reversible carboxyl/hydroxyl conversion driven by proton uptake and release during cycling,” said Dr Vongsvivut. 

The study also revealed that intercalated protons (or hydronium ions) can protonate amino groups, contributing to an intermolecular hydrogen-bond network that enhances the battery’s performance. Computational analysis confirmed that protons are more easily stored in TABQ compared to metal ions, reinforcing the efficiency of this organic system.

Read more on ANSTO website

Image: Professor Chuan Zhao holds up a prototype of a proton battery in the lab, made in collaboration with UNSW Engineering and ANSTO.                                      

Credit: Prof Zhao and UNSW

New type of battery could outlast EVs

New type of battery could outlast EVs

There’s a big push underway to increase the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries powering EVs on the road today. By law, in the US, these cells must be able to hold 80% of their original full charge after eight years of operation.

However, many industry experts believe we need batteries that last decades – so that once they’re no longer robust enough for use in EVs, we can put them to use in “second-life applications” – such as bundling them together to store wind and solar energy to power the electrical grid.

Researchers from Dalhousie University used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to analyze a new type of lithium-ion battery material – called a single-crystal electrode – that’s been charging and discharging non-stop in a Halifax lab for more than six years. It lasted more than 20,000 cycles before it hit the 80% capacity cutoff. That translates to driving a jaw-dropping 8 million kms.  As part of the study, the researchers compared the new type of battery – which has only recently come to market – to a regular lithium-ion battery that lasted 2,400 cycles before it reached the 80% cutoff.

“The main focus of our research was to understand how damage and fatigue inside a battery progresses over time, and how we can prevent it,” says Toby Bond, a senior scientist at the CLS, who conducted the research for his PhD, under the supervision of Professor Jeff Dahn, Professor Emeritus and Principal Investigator (NSERC/Tesla Canada/Dalhousie Alliance Grant) at Dalhousie University. The study was funded by Tesla Canada and NSERC under the Alliance grant program.

Things got very interesting, he says, when the scientists used the ultrabright synchrotron light to peer inside the two batteries. When they looked at the inner workings of the regular lithium-ion battery, they saw an extensive amount of microscopic cracking in the electrode material, caused by repeated charging and discharging. The lithium, he explains, actually forces the atoms in the battery material apart and causes expansion and contraction of the material.

“Eventually, there were so many cracks that the electrode was essentially pulverized.”

However, when the researchers looked at the single crystal electrode battery, they saw next to no evidence of this mechanical stress. “In our images, it looked very much like a brand-new cell. We could almost not tell the difference.”

Bond attributes the near absence of degradation in the new style battery to the difference in the shape and behaviour of the particles that make up the battery electrodes. In the regular battery, the battery electrodes are made up of tiny particles up to 50 times smaller than the width of a hair. If you zoom in on these particles, they are composed of even tinier crystals that are bunched together like snowflakes in a snowball. The single crystal is, as its name implies, one big crystal: it’s more like an ice cube. “If you have a snowball in one hand, and an ice cube in the other, it’s a lot easier to crush the snowball,” says Bond. “The ice cube is much more resistant to mechanical stress and strain.”

Read more on CLS website

Synchrotron light impact on battery materials during real-time analysis

Synchrotron light impact on battery materials during real-time analysis

A multi-centre study carried out by ALBA Synchrotron, ICMAB-CSIC, CIC energiGUNE and BRTA researchers has uncovered critical beam-induced effects in battery materials studied using synchrotron light. The team demonstrated that X-ray radiation can inhibit electrochemical activity in common lithium-ion battery electrodes during characterization studies.

The study identifies radiation dose thresholds and proposes new strategies to mitigate beam-induced effects to ensure more accurate operando battery characterization.

Efficient energy storage is critical to achieving a clean energy future, since large-scale batteries will enable the storage and distribution of renewable energy sources like solar and wind power. Global efforts to optimize battery performance include the development of new materials, which are often characterized using synchrotron-based operando techniques. These real-time measurements examine the performance of the battery as it charges and discharges. However, the potential impact of high-intensity X-ray beams on the materials under study had not been fully understood until now, raising concerns about the accuracy of results from these powerful techniques.

A new study, published in Chemistry of Materials, sheds light on this issue by systematically investigating how synchrotron radiation affects two widely used battery electrode materials based on lithium: LiNi0.33Mn0.33Co0.33O2 (NMC111) and LiFePO₄ (LFP). The research reveals that the X-ray beams produced at synchrotron facilities and used in these experiments can alter the electrochemical activity of these materials, and in extreme cases, this may lead to incorrect conclusions about the performance of the materials.

Researchers from the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), the Centre for Cooperative Research on Alternative Energies (CIC energiGUNE), the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA) and the ALBA Synchrotron collaborated to investigate the electrochemical behavior of NMC111 and LFP—two key components of commercial lithium-ion batteries—under X-ray radiation. Using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) at the MSPD and NOTOS beamlines of ALBA, they observed how the materials reacted to different radiation intensities while undergoing charge and discharge cycles.

The results showed that at high doses, the synchrotron radiation caused a localized inhibition of the electrochemical reactivity at the irradiated areas. In other words, the X-ray beam interfered with the normal functioning of the battery material, slowing down or halting the expected chemical reactions. The effects were found to be dose-dependent, with higher radiation doses leading to more significant inhibition. Importantly, the study demonstrated that these effects were reversible. Once the beam was moved to a different area or when the radiation intensity was reduced, the materials returned to their normal activity. This suggests that the materials were not permanently damaged by the beam, but rather their activity was temporarily “paused” due to X-ray exposure.

These findings corroborate already known beam-induced effects in operando measurements with synchrotron light. Nevertheless, thanks to the systematic investigation they also enable researchers to propose several strategies to mitigate them. For example, reducing the intensity of the synchrotron beam by using attenuators, such as aluminum foils to lower the photon flux reaching the sample. The researchers also found that thinner battery electrodes were less affected by the beam, suggesting that the thickness of the materials being studied influences their radiation tolerance. Additionally, they observed that controlling the exposure time and introducing rest periods between measurements could help prevent the build-up of beam effects.

This study, the first to use the NOTOS beamline for advancing battery research, not only provided a first systematic analysis of the beam-induced effects when using synchrotron light to study materials under actual working conditions, but also has broader implications for improving the accuracy of synchrotron-based characterization techniques across many fields of materials science. As scientists work to develop new and more efficient battery materials—especially for applications like electric vehicles and renewable energy storage—synchrotron specialists around the world will continue refining high-brilliance X-ray techniques to provide accurate, real-time data for understanding the complex chemical processes that take place during battery operation.

Read more on ALBA website

Developing batteries with 10 times the energy storage

Developing batteries with 10 times the energy storage

Researchers from Western University gain deeper understanding of all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries, which could lead to EVs that cost less to purchase, travel further on a single charge, and are safer to drive.

To meet the rising global demand for electric vehicles, we need new and improved batteries. One promising candidate are all-solid-state lithium sulfur batteries. They can store nearly 10 times the amount of energy as traditional lithium-ion batteries, according to researcher Justin Kim.

This type of rechargeable battery uses sulfur, a material that is affordable, readily available, and more environmentally friendly, and it is also significantly safer, according to Kim. This means that your electric vehicle could cost less to purchase, drive longer distances on a single charge, and be a safer ride for your family.

“The fundamental understanding of this type of battery is very limited right now because it’s an emerging technology,” said Kim, who studied lithium sulfur batteries during his Master’s degree at Western University and is now working on his PhD at the University of California in Los Angeles in the same field. “So, not much is known about their operational mechanism and their failure modes, and this information is really important for designing longer-lasting, high-energy density batteries.”

Kim and colleagues at Western University used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan to analyze what happens inside these batteries when they are in use. They identified which species of sulfur are formed in the battery during its operation and how this could reduce performance or cause the batteries to fail. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.

Read more on CLS website

Superstore MXene: New proton hydration structure determined

Superstore MXene: New proton hydration structure determined

MXenes are able to store large amounts of electrical energy like batteries and to charge and discharge rather quickly like a supercapacitor. They combine both talents and thus are a very interesting class of materials for energy storage. The material is structured like a kind of puff pastry, with the MXene layers separated by thin water films. A team at HZB has now investigated how protons migrate in the water films confined between the layers of the material and enable charge transport. Their results have been published in the renowned journal Nature Communications and may accelerate the optimisation of these kinds of energy storage materials.

One of the biggest challenges for a climate-neutral energy supply is the storage of electrical energy. Conventional batteries can hold large amounts of energy, but the charging and discharging processes take time. Supercapacitors, on the other hand, charge very quickly but are limited in the amount of stored energy. Only in the last few years has a new class of materials been discussed that combines the advantages of batteries with those of supercapacitors, named pseudocapacitors.

Promising materials: Pseudocapacitors

Among pseudocapacitive materials, so-called MXenes consisting of a large family of 2D transition metal carbides and nitrides appear particularly promising. Their structure resembles a puff pastry, with the individual layers separated by a thin film of water that enables the transport of charges. Titanium carbide MXenes, especially, are conductive and their layered structure combined with highly negatively-charged hydrophilic surfaces offers a unique material in which positively charged ions such as protons can diffuse very efficiently. The MXenes used in this study were synthesized in the group of Prof. Yury Gogotsi in Drexel University, USA.

Charge transport examined

Over the last years, this property has been used to store and release energy from protons at unprecedented rates in acidic environment. It remains though unclear if the charges are mostly stored based on proton adsorption at the MXene surface or through desolvation of proton in the MXene interlayer.

Confinement effect expected

Due to its two-dimensional geometry, the 2-3 layer thick water film trapped between the MXene layers is expected to solvate protons differently from bulk water that we classically know. While this confinement effect is supposed to play a role in the fast diffusion of protons inside MXene materials, it has been impossible until now to characterise protons inside a MXene electrode during charging and discharging.

Vibrational modes analysed

The team led by Dr. Tristan Petit at HZB has now succeeded in doing this for the first time by analysing vibrational modes of protons excited by infrared light. Postdoctoral researcher Dr Mailis Lounasvuori has developed an operando electrochemical cell that she used to analyse protons and water inside titanium carbide MXenes at BESSY II during the charging and discharging processes. In the process, she also succeeded in distilling out the special signature of the protons in the confined water between the MXene layers.

Read more on the HZB website

Image: The experiment: Infrared light excites protons in the water film, which move between the Ti3C2-MXene layers. Their oscillation patterns show that they behave differently than in a thicker film of water.

Credit: © M. Künsting /HZB

First direct measurement of elusive Donnan potential

First direct measurement of elusive Donnan potential

Scientific achievement

At the Advanced Light Source (ALS), researchers performed the first direct measurement of the Donnan electrical potential, which arises from an imbalance of charges at membrane-solution interfaces.

Significance and impact

Considered unmeasurable for over a century, the Donnan potential is relevant to a wide range of fields, from cell biology to energy storage and water desalination.

A breakthrough with great potential

The Donnan electrical potential arises from an imbalance of charges at the interface of a charged membrane and a liquid, and for more than a century it stubbornly eluded direct measurement. Many researchers had even written off such a measurement as impossible. Now, using ambient-pressure x-ray photoelectrion spectroscopy (APXPS) at the ALS, scientists directly measured the Donnan potential for the first time.

The ability to probe the characteristics of this potential at membrane-solution interfaces could yield new insights in biology, energy science, and materials science. For example, the Donnan potential plays a critical role in biological functions ranging from muscle contractions to neural signaling. Energy storage and water purification using ion exchange membranes (IEMs) are also important applications involving the Donnan potential.

Read more on the ALS website

Image: Left: Schematic of the x-ray experiment. Right: The presence of fixed ions inside a membrane generates an electrochemical potential gradient (the Donnan potential) that leads to more counter-ions (with charge opposite that of the fixed ions) diffusing from the solution to the membrane relative to co-ions (which have the same charge as the fixed ions).