Better ways to store energy are critical to becoming more energy efficient. One of the keys to advances in energy storage lies in both finding novel materials and in understanding how current and new materials function. The NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES) supports basic research in the design of the next generation of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs), which requires the development of new chemistries and the fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical processes that occur in these complex systems.
The center aims to develop an understanding of how key electrode reactions occur and how they can be controlled to improve electrochemical performance, from the atomistic level to the macroscopic level through the life-time of the operating battery.
The processes that occur in batteries are complex, spanning a wide range of time and length scale. The team of experimentalists and theorists will make the use of, and develop new methodologies to determine how model compound electrodes function in real time, as batteries are cycled.
NECCES aims to:
- Close the gap between the theoretical and practical energy density for intercalation compounds.
- Attain reversible multi-electron transfer in a cathode material using lithium.
- Understand performance limiting transport in positive electrode structures from the local through the meso to the macroscale.
- Enable new chemistries involving electrode systems that were previously considered intractable for use in batteries.
