CAREER: Microstructural Engineering of Solid Composite Electrolytes through Process Manipulation

该教师早期职业发展（CAREER）资助支持能够提供固体电解质系统中加工和微观结构之间关键、基本关系的研究。该奖项下的研究成果将通过从高能材料到结构电池等多个领域的先进能源系统生产促进国家繁荣。结构电池（即，可以承受机械负载的电池）是提高电动车辆生存能力的有吸引力的选择，因为它们用固体对应物代替危险的液体电解质。这些固体电解质通常结合联合收割机电活性聚合物和陶瓷以增强电池耐久性和电性能。然而，由于关于制造历史-微结构链接的显著知识差距，目前不可能生产高导电性、机械坚固的固态电池。该奖项支持综合实验和建模，以揭示制造历史的影响（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的界面的影响。该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性能，从而为所有规模的工业过程提供信息，以通过微结构操作来调整和增强结构电池性能。该项目还旨在加强科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）的职业可及性，将护理人员引入制造科学，并增加本科研究对这一面临高障碍的人群的可及性。这将通过以课程为基础的本科生研究经验来实现，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。该项目旨在揭示在受控制造条件下微观结构发展的机械理解，以调整复合电解质的体积响应。研究目标将通过多尺度调查来完成，以填补制造-微观结构-性能生命周期中的知识空白。研究小组将进行流变学和光谱学的耦合，以检查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界面尺寸，包括机械和电学，并在机械负荷下对电解质样品进行离子电导率测量，该奖项反映了NSF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.