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Scientists Confirm Century-Old Speculation on the Chemistry of a High-Performance Battery
March 12, 2018 | Berkeley LabEstimated reading time: 5 minutes
Then the team turned to a newly built system at the ALS, dubbed in situ resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, or iRIXS. The technique, which provides a high-sensitivity probe of the internal chemistry of materials, showed a telltale contrast in the electrons during the battery’s charge and discharge cycles.
“A very clear contrast immediately shows up with RIXS,” Yang said. “We later realized that manganese 1-plus behaves very, very closely to the typical 2-plus state in other conventional spectroscopy,” which is why it had been difficult to detect for so many decades.
Wray added, “The analysis of the RIXS results not only confirms the manganese 1-plus state; it also shows that the special circumstances giving rise to this state make it easier for electrons to travel in the material. This is likely why such an unusual battery electrode performs so well.”
Commercial prototypes based on the battery tested at the Lab entered customer beta testing earlier this year, Wessells noted. In addition to grid applications, Natron Energy is promoting the technology for data centers’ emergency power, and for heavy equipment such as electric forklifts, among other possible applications.
Yang said that the chemical puzzle solved in the latest study could inspire other R&D in new types of battery electrodes. “The operation of a battery could drive the emergence of atypical chemical states that do not exist in our conventional thinking. This basic understanding could trigger other novel designs, and open our eyes beyond our conventional wisdom” on electrode materials, he said.
“This study was like a perfect package, with combined industry, national lab, and university contributions,” Yang said.
The Advanced Light Source and Molecular Foundry are DOE Office of Science User Facilities.
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Berkeley Lab, and the National Science Foundation.
About Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel Prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more, click here.
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