The Design and Understanding of Advanced Battery Materials

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The proposed research is devoted to the design of advanced materials for (i) energy storage systems and (ii) magnetic and electrical devices. The two main aspects of the research program will be: (a) the use of combinatorial approaches to discover new materials and (b) the development of fundamental understanding of their properties. This research program involves the following 3 sub-projects:***1) High-throughput synthesis and electrochemical studies of battery materials. We will capitalize on the previously established combinatorial synthesis of crystalline powders by combining established structural studies with high-throughput electrochemical methods. This project requires the development of combinatorial electrochemical tools for the study of positive electrode materials and solid electrolytes. These tools will allow for the rapid screening of promising new materials for a variety of energy storage applications.***2) Structural studies of charge storage materials and materials for magnetic/electronic devices. A combinatorial synthesis approach will be used to make novel materials to be studied by powder X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). This will enable detailed studies of broad composition spaces for materials of interest for a wide variety of applications. At first, this will be used for the study of positive electrodes for lithium-ion batteries, but this approach will also be used to study materials for both sodium-ion and all-solid-state batteries. The combinatorial approach will also be applied to make materials with non-uniform morphologies such as core-shell particles; this is becoming an important feature for next-generation materials. Beyond batteries, the combinatorial approach will be adapted and applied to systems of interest for magnetic/electronic devices including perovskites and Heusler alloys, with a particular focus on cases where, to date, the limited understanding of the compositional phase diagram has made determining the desired structure-property relationships impossible.***3) Detailed nano-scale studies of promising materials for targeted applications (e.g. high-energy positive electrodes for Li-ion batteries). Part of the proposed research includes performing classic solid-state syntheses and electrochemical studies of Li-ion positive electrode materials with high metal site vacancies as discovered in previous combinatorial studies. Coupling advanced characterization techniques (such as XRD, Transmission Electron Microscopy, and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) with computational techniques will help determine the structural/electronic changes which take place during charge-discharge cycling and guide the rational design of new advanced functional materials.**