Project Summary:

Performance, efficiency and/or lifetime of energy storage and conversion materials, as well as any resource efficient structural materials, depend on a variety of physical and chemical parameters, but their mutual interplay and influence remain unexplored. For example, to experimentally assess mechano-chemical interfacial incompatibilities within Li-based batteries, the atomistic chemistry of interfaces or grain boundaries must be considered in concert with a complex multi-parameter set of varying experimental conditions and involved length scales. This requires the use of unique in-situ and in-operando testing methods that must simultaneously operate at the nano- and microscales and are best studied using advanced multi-scale electron microscopy methods with extreme environmental control. Investigations at this scale remain limited because standard techniques typically destroy these delicate interfaces. While it was recently demonstrated by leading international universities that cryo-microscopy allows to circumvent this limitation, a true multiscale investigation enabling to correlate microstructure, chemistry, electrical and nanomechanical properties in operational energy systems remains a vision.

The Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science will combine sophisticated environmentally controlled microscopy techniques with innovative testing and analytical methods being developed and correlate functional behavior of energy systems, flexible electronics, magnets, and energy efficient structural materials. The planned acquisition is a cryogenic environmental focused ion beam (FIB) workstation with chemical (secondary ion mass spectroscopy – SIMS, energy dispersive spectroscopy – EDS), microstructural (electron backscatter diffraction – EBSD), mechanical and electrical probes, as well as the related transfer system for connecting to other high-resolution facilities (transmission electron microscopy – TEM). Such an exceptional combination of cryogenic structural and chemical material analysis, paired with local modification and mechanical stimulus, uniquely enables in-operando analysis of multiple physical and chemical parameters critical for energy materials with unseen fidelity.

This infrastructure would be the first of its kind in Austria and is essential to explore functional multi-material hybrid systems (batteries, flexible electronics, hydrogen power cells) and structural materials in-situ or in-operando at the nano- and microscales. For example, it will enable to study the thermo-electro-chemo-mechanical processes within individual electrodes and separators as well as the interfaces between components during operation (lithiation, H incorporation) at micro- and nanoscales. After installation and ramp-up phase, the new facility will be open for outside users on a proposal basis (coming soon). (to open up when we are ready, with deadlines twice a year)

Find more information:

www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/watching-batteries-at-work-with-new-high-tech-methods