In situ methods and new materials for study of electrochemical energy storage processes

我们加拿大人，甚至世界上所有的人都站在十字路口。在未来几年，计划中的大规模投资将使社会越来越多地得到太阳能等可再生能源的支持，对加拿大人来说，更重要的是风能。这些丰富的无污染能源将需要一种被称为电气化的全社会变革，在这种变革中，几乎所有需要能源的努力都使用电力。对于这一非凡的未来，需要警告的是，我们需要发展一种大规模储存电能的能力，因为生产与需求没有联系，也就是说，风的吹动与我们的能源需求无关。因此，我们的研究计划的长期愿景是开发将动力性能和长时间使用寿命与低财务和环境成本相结合的电池。 为此，我们专注于开发模型以及测试基于分子构建块的新体系结构。 一项突破性的进步，可能是这项提议的结果，就是开发出高保真的数值模型。事实证明，这些模型在虚拟的“假设”电池设计和寿命预测方面将被证明是无价的。为了实现这个崇高的目标，需要高保真的输入参数，这些参数应该随着两种主要的新分析技术的成熟而变得可用。 一项可能具有类似重要性的进展将是开发高效的分子电池。这是因为它们可以基于(生物)可再生能源，它们可以与比Li更容易获得的其他离子一起使用，并且它们具有显著的加工灵活性。为了推进这一目标，我们提出了一组独特的分子结构，将导电聚合物与高压电荷存储分子相结合。 总体而言，拟议的工作可以说是过去25年来最重要的能源政策变化，为加拿大的电池行业提供了新的科学和训练有素的人员，这与我们成功的全社会电气化直接相关。

We Canadians, and indeed all the people in the world are at a crossroad. Over the coming years, planned massive investments will allow society to be increasingly supported by renewable energies like solar, and more importantly for Canadians, wind. These abundant nonpolluting energies will require a society wide transformation known as electrification where electricity is used in virtually all energy requiring endeavors. The caveat of this remarkable future is that we need to develop an ability to store electric energy on a massive scale, since production is not linked to demand, i.e. the wind blows independently of our energy needs. Our research program's long-term vision is therefore to develop batteries that combine power performance and long operational lifetime with low financial and environmental costs. To this end, we focus on developing models as well as testing new architectures based on molecular building blocks. A groundbreaking advance, that could potentially be the outcome of this proposal is the development of numerical models with high fidelity. These models would prove invaluable in virtual “what-if” battery design and longevity predictions. To reach this lofty goal requires high fidelity input parameters that should become available as two major new analytical techniques mature from this proposal. An advance of potentially similar importance would be the development of efficient molecular based batteries. This is due the facts that they can be based on (bio) renewables, they may be used with other more readily available ions than Li, and they have significant processing flexibility. To advance towards this objective, we propose a set of unique molecular structures that combine conductive polymers with high voltage charge storage molecules. Overall, the proposed work serves arguably the most important energy policy changes of the last 25 years, by providing new science and highly trained personnel to Canada's battery industry that is directly tied to our successful society wide electrification.