Bioinspired green manufacturing of next generation energy storage materials

锂离子电池（lib）在便携式电子设备中的无处不在，导致了对有望改善性能特征的材料的大量研究。无论是从它们能提供的能量、它们的使用寿命还是总体成本来看，开发改进的功能材料都是迫切需要的。特别是锂镍钴锰氧化物由于其高可实现比容量和良好的长期性能而成为极具吸引力的正极材料；它们也被商业化并广泛应用于电池市场。然而，它们的合成通常需要长时间的极端温度，这贡献了绝大部分的能源成本。此外，它们的制造是浪费和不可持续的。因此，使用更可持续的合成路线有可能大幅减少这一费用。从生物学中学习，我们的目标是发现新的生物启发路线来生产储能材料。这些方法需要更低的温度，从而减少能源需求，并允许在纳米尺度上对材料特性进行更好的控制。这是一种全新的方法，从未应用于储能材料。

The ubiquity of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) in portable electronic devices have led to an enormous volume of research on materials promising improved performance characteristics. Whether in terms of the amount of energy they can deliver, their operating lifetime or overall cost, there are pressing demands for the development of improved functional materials. In particular, Li-Ni-Co-Mn-oxides are attractive cathode materials due to their high achievable specific capacity and good long-term performance; they are also commercialised and widely used in the battery market. However, their synthesis typically requires extreme temperatures over long duration, contributing the vast majority of the energy costs. Furthermore, their manufacture is wasteful and is unsustainable. Hence the use of more sustainable synthesis routes has the potential to drastically reduce this expense.Learning from biology, we aim to discover new bioinspired routes to produce energy storage materials. These methods will need lower temperatures, leading to reduced energy demands, and allow for superior control of materials properties on the nanoscale. This is a radically new approach, which has never been applied to energy storage materials.