CAREER: Microstructural Engineering of Solid Composite Electrolytes through Process Manipulation

这项教师早期职业发展（Career）资助的研究将提供固体电解质系统中加工和微观结构之间关键的、基本的关系。该奖项的研究成果将通过从高能材料到结构电池等许多领域的先进能源系统生产，促进国家繁荣。结构电池（即可以承受机械负荷的电池）是提高电动汽车可行性的一个有吸引力的选择，因为它们用固体电解质取代了危险的液体电解质。这些固体电解质通常结合电活性聚合物和陶瓷，以提高电池的耐用性和电气性能。然而，由于制造历史和微观结构方面的知识差距，目前不可能生产出高导电性、机械坚固的固态电池。该奖项支持集成实验和建模，以揭示制造历史（例如温度、固化条件和剪切速率）对固体复合电解质中电活性聚合物和陶瓷之间界面的影响。这个界面决定了电解质复合材料的机械和离子行为。通过了解界面形成机制，可以在制造阶段设计结构电池的性能，从而为各种规模的工业过程提供信息，通过微观结构操纵来调整和提高结构电池的性能。该项目还旨在通过向护理人员介绍制造科学和增加本科研究对这一面临高障碍的人群的可及性，加强科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）职业的可及性。这将通过以课程为基础的本科生研究经验，加强对本科生研究学者的照顾者支持，并深入社区支持第一代STEM学者的父母来实现。该项目旨在揭示在受控制造条件下微结构发展的机制理解，以调整复合电解质的体响应。研究目标将通过多尺度调查来完成，以填补制造-微结构-性能生命周期的知识空白。研究团队将利用耦合流变学和光谱学来研究聚合物和陶瓷之间关于界面形成的分子相互作用，利用原子力显微镜技术来量化机械和电气界面尺寸，并在机械负载下对电解质样品进行离子电导率测量，以将纳米级效应与体性能联系起来。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant supports research that will provide critical, fundamental relationships between processing and microstructure in solid electrolyte systems. Findings under this award will promote national prosperity through advanced energy system production in many fields ranging from energetic materials to structural batteries. Structural batteries (i.e., a battery that can bear mechanical load) are an attractive option to improve electric vehicle viability as they replace hazardous liquid electrolytes with a solid counterpart. These solid electrolytes typically combine electroactive polymers and ceramics to enhance battery durability and electrical performance. However, the production of highly conductive, mechanically robust solid-state batteries is currently impossible due to the significant knowledge gaps concerning the manufacturing history – microstructure link. This award supports integrated experiments and modeling to uncover the impact of manufacturing history (e.g., temperature, cure conditions, and shear rate) on the interface between the electroactive polymer and ceramic in solid composite electrolytes. This interface determines how an electrolyte composite behaves mechanically and ionically. By understanding interface formation mechanisms, structural battery performance can be designed during the manufacturing stage, thus informing industrial processes at all scales to tune and enhance structural battery performance through microstructural manipulation. This project also aims to strengthen science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career accessibility by introducing caregivers to manufacturing science and increasing accessibility of undergraduate research to this population that faces high barriers. This will be accomplished with course-based undergraduate research experiences, enhancing caregiver support for undergraduate research scholars, and reaching into the community to support parents of first-generation STEM scholars.This project aims to unveil a mechanistic understanding of microstructural development in controlled manufacturing conditions to tune bulk response in composite electrolytes. The research objectives will be accomplished through a multi-scale investigation to fill knowledge gaps in the manufacturing-microstructure-performance lifecycle. The research team will perform coupled rheology and spectroscopy to examine molecular interactions between polymer and ceramic regarding interface formation, utilize atomic force microscopy techniques to quantify interface size both mechanically and electrically, and perform ionic conductivity measurements on electrolyte specimens under mechanical load to tie nano-scale effects to bulk performance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.