XPD – Lightsources.org

Expertise in characterising materials for lithium ion batteries

2020/02/272020/03/05

Pioneering work on materials for energy production, such as lithium ion batteries, has made ANSTO a centre of specialist capabilities and expertise.

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In addition to the research on lithium-ion batteries; the team also investigates other types of batteries that can reversibly host ions, such as sodium and potassium ion batteries.
Dr Christophe Didier, a post-doc working with Peterson at the ACNS and shared with Peterson’s University of Wollongong collaborators, published work in Advanced Energy Materials providing structural insights into layered manganese oxide electrodes for potassium-Ion batteries.
“In this case, we were able to use X-rays on an operating battery at the Australian Synchrotron, because potassium has a lot more electrons than lithium.”
These results again confirm the importance of understanding the detailed structural evolution that underpins performance that will inform the strategic design of electrode materials for high-performance potassium ion batteries. “We do have many collaborators but we are always interested in new projects. Because we are knowledgeable in the materials themselves, we can contribute to the selection of suitable materials as well as leading the characterisation effort.

Image: Powder diffraction instrument scientist, Dr Qinfen Gu at the Australian Synchrotron.

Scientists design organic cathode for high performance batteries

2019/05/302019/06/06

The new, sulfur-based material is more energy-dense, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly than traditional cathodes in lithium batteries.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have designed a new, organic cathode material for lithium batteries. With sulfur at its core, the material is more energy-dense, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly than traditional cathode materials in lithium batteries. The research was published in Advanced Energy Materials on April 10, 2019.

Optimizing cathode materials

From smartphones to electric vehicles, the technologies that have become central to everyday life run on lithium batteries. And as the demand for these products continues to rise, scientists are investigating how to optimize cathode materials to improve the overall performance of lithium battery systems.
“Commercialized lithium-ion batteries are used in small electronic devices; however, to accommodate long driving ranges for electric vehicles, their energy density needs to be higher,” said Zulipiya Shadike, a research associate in Brookhaven’s Chemistry Division and the lead author of the research. “We are trying to develop new battery systems with a high energy density and stable performance.”

>Read more on the NSLS-II website

Image: Lead author Zulipiya Shadike (right) is pictured at NSLS-II’s XPD beamline with lead beamline scientist and co-author Sanjit Ghose (left).

Catalyst renders nerve agents harmless

2019/04/222019/05/02

Scientists used a multimodal approach to understand how a catalyst decomposes nerve agents in real-life environments

A team of scientists including researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied a catalyst that decomposes nerve agents, eliminating their harmful and lethal effects. The research was published Friday, April 19, in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

“Our work is part of an ongoing, multiagency effort to protect soldiers and civilians from chemical warfare agents (CWAs),” said Anatoly Frenkel, a physicist with a joint appointment at Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University and the lead author on the paper. “The research requires us to understand molecular interactions on a very small scale, and to develop special characterization methods that are capable of observing those interactions. It is a very complex set of problems that also has a very immediate societal impact.”

Image: Lead author Anatoly Frenkel is shown at NSLS-II’s X-ray Powder Diffraction beamline, where part of the research was conducted.

Tripling the energy storage of lithium-ion batteries

2018/06/142018/06/15

Scientists have synthesized a new cathode material from iron fluoride that surpasses the capacity limits of traditional lithium-ion batteries.

As the demand for smartphones, electric vehicles, and renewable energy continues to rise, scientists are searching for ways to improve lithium-ion batteries—the most common type of battery found in home electronics and a promising solution for grid-scale energy storage. Increasing the energy density of lithium-ion batteries could facilitate the development of advanced technologies with long-lasting batteries, as well as the widespread use of wind and solar energy. Now, researchers have made significant progress toward achieving that goal.

A collaboration led by scientists at the University of Maryland (UMD), the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the U.S. Army Research Lab have developed and studied a new cathode material that could triple the energy density of lithium-ion battery electrodes. Their research was published on June 13 in Nature Communications.

Image: Brookhaven scientists are shown at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Pictured from left to right are: (top row) Jianming Bai, Seongmin Bak, and Sooyeon Hwang; (bottom row) Dong Su and Enyuan Hu.