Tag: EV

Battery Scientist Honored by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office

Battery Scientist Honored by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office

UPTON, N.Y. — Longer lasting batteries would allow electric vehicles (EVs) to drive farther and perhaps inspire more people to make the switch from fossil fuels. One key to better EV batteries is understanding the intricate details of how they work — and stop working.

Xiao-Qing Yang, a physicist who leads the Electrochemical Energy Storage group within the Chemistry Division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has spent a good deal of his professional career doing just that. DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) recently recognized his contributions with a Distinguished Achievement Award presented during its 2024 Annual Merit Review. Each year, VTO presents awards to individuals from partner institutions for contributions to overall program efforts and to recognize research, development, demonstration, and deployment achievements in specific areas. 

Yang was honored “for pioneering [the use of] advanced characterization tools, such as in situ X-ray diffraction and absorption, to analyze battery materials under operational and extreme conditions in support of VTO battery research and development (R&D) at Brookhaven National Laboratory over the last 38 years.”

Read more on BNL website

Image: Battery chemist Xiao-Qing Yang (left) with colleagues Enyuan Hu and Eli Stavitski at the Inner-Shell Spectroscopy (ISS) beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

New study could help unlock ‘game-changing’ batteries for electric vehicles and aviation

New study could help unlock ‘game-changing’ batteries for electric vehicles and aviation

Significantly improved electric vehicle (EV) batteries could be a step closer thanks to a new study led by University of Oxford researchers, published today in Nature. Using advanced imaging techniques, this revealed mechanisms which cause lithium metal solid-state batteries (Li-SSBs) to fail. If these can be overcome, solid-state batteries using lithium metal anodes could deliver a step-change improvement in EV battery range, safety and performance, and help advance electrically powered aviation.

One of the co-lead authors of the study Dominic Melvin, a PhD student in the University of Oxford’s Department of Materials, said:

Progressing solid-state batteries with lithium metal anodes is one of the most important challenges facing the advancement of battery technologies. While lithium-ion batteries of today will continue to improve, research into solid-state batteries has the potential to be high-reward and a gamechanger technology.

Li-SSBs are distinct from other batteries because they replace the flammable liquid electrolyte in conventional batteries with a solid electrolyte and use lithium metal as the anode (negative electrode). The use of the solid electrolyte improves the safety, and the use of lithium metal means more energy can be stored. A critical challenge with Li-SSBs, however, is that they are prone to short circuit when charging due to the growth of ‘dendrites’: filaments of lithium metal that crack through the ceramic electrolyte. As part of the Faraday Institution’s SOLBAT project, which Diamond is a partner, researchers have led a series of in-depth investigations to understand more about how this short-circuiting happens.

In this latest study, the group used an advanced imaging technique called X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) at the I13-2 beamline of Diamond Light Source to visualise dendrite failure in unprecedented detail during the charging process.

Read more on the Diamond website