Colloquium: Role of large-scale facilities for battery research and innovation

ABSTRACT

Batteries are today a central part of the necessary developments towards sustainable technology solutions with the transition to electromobility and grid energy storage in renewable power systems. With new applications new demands arise, such as energy density, fast charging, operational temperature range and not the sustainability from both raw materials and processing point of view. To meet these demands there are today intense research efforts world-wide in order to optimise and extend current leading technology, the Li-ion battery, as well as exploring next generation technologies, e.g. solid state, Na-ion, Li-metal and Li-sulphur batteries.

Advanced characterization is central in order to underpin the needed development of battery technology. Understanding functionality of new materials, mechanisms of new chemistries and processes and degradation of materials in full cells, requires characterization over length scales from Ångström to meters, from ps to hours, with chemical selectivity and to look into working cells in real time or to perform multimodal experiments, where several properties are probed at the same time or on the same material. The rapid development of synchrotron x-ray and neutron technology, opens up new opportunities to address these challenges. This seminar will discuss the application of advanced x-ray and neutron scattering and imaging techniques to accelerate development of next generation technology and innovations. In particular, the potential for operando experiment, where we look into working batteries, workflows, access and ways if working with the community are at focus.

BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Aleksandar Matic is professor of Physics and Head of the Division for Materials Physics at the Department of Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. His research interests span from fundamentals of soft matter to applied research on materials for energy applications. A particular focus is materials for next generation batteries, e.g. LiS-batteries, nano-strucured carbon materials, interface engineering of Li-metal surfaces and development of ionic-liquid based electrolytes. He also has a strong interest in the use and development of large-scale facilities for synchrotron X-ray and neutron scattering.