Tom and Mary Beck Center for Renewable Energy

Rechargeable batteries play a central role in the transition to sustainable energy utilization by enabling electric transportation and efficient grid energy storage. Current battery materials require improvement in energy density, life span, and safety. The research conducted by Dr. Michal Leskes and her team focuses on rechargeable batteries and involves using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to provide essential insight for designing high-energy, long-lasting, energy storage systems.

This research addresses fundamental challenges associated with the implementation of next generation battery materials, including high-energy cathode materials, lithium and other metal anodes, and the development of solid electrolytes. Recent achievements in the lab include defining design rules for artificial protective surface layers and the development of an approach to study ion transport across the metal electrolyte-interface. These methods can enable the utilization of cathode materials, potentially providing a 20% increase in the energy density of lithium-ion battery cells, and the use of metal-based anodes, which would significantly enhance the storage capabilities of rechargeable batteries for large scale applications.

Dr. Sivan Refaely-Abramson is a computational scientist and theoretician whose work sits at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and materials science. Her goal is to use theoretical computational approaches to determine how the properties of materials can be selected, organized, and arranged to produce specific functionality—in this case, an increase in the amount of energy that can be generated by solar devices. 

Dr. Refaely-Abramson’s lab uses computational approaches, such as large-scale advanced computing and supercomputers, to examine these quantum dynamics of semiconductor materials with photovoltaic potential, in hopes of eventually―in collaboration with experimentalists―putting them to use in improved methods for harvesting, converting, and storing sunlight as a renewable energy source.

Unlike conventional semiconductors, such as silicon, which are bound together by stable covalent or electron bonds, soft semiconductors such as halide perovskites are made of organic molecules, polymers, and ionic materials that are held together by weak atomic forces. This class of materials is showing promise for the solar cells, electronic displays, and bright-light-emitting diodes of the future. Often transparent and flexible, they may be useful for future applications, such as electronic skin, semi-transparent solar cells (for windows), and flexible electronics (for clothing). Soft semiconductors are also self-healing, may be inexpensive, can be processed in chemical solutions, and are readily deposited in large areas on a range of surfaces to create electronic components.

It is well known that electricity can split water into molecular hydrogen and oxygen. Burning hydrogen releases energy in the form of heat, which results in the formation of water as the only product. This energy storage-release process is fully reversible, sustainable, and environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, while the theory is exciting, the actual technology to support this idea is lacking—the electricity in this equation needs to be supplied to water by electrodes that are currently not sufficiently reactive or stable. 

To solve this problem, Prof. Milko van der Boom and his lab are exploring the use of electrodes modified with a class of porous, metallo-organic coatings (films) to enhance their reactivity and stability. These films contain two different metal centers (palladium and iron), both of which, in principle, activate water and have been the subject of previous studies in the van der Boom lab. The goal of the group’s research is to evaluate potential films in terms of their efficiency and stability as catalysts. The group also aims to gain insight into how these films work and inform future catalyst design by observing their actions during catalytic runs. These new-and-improved electrodes can potentially be used as electro-catalysts or as windows that change color, which has great potential for developing smart glass for climate control in buildings and cars. This research can open up new directions in clean energy, such as the production of electrochromic materials that also have the potential to play a significant role in the sustainable production of clean fuel and electricity.

Probing the electrified interface between an electrode surface and an electrolyte solution during a reaction is a daunting task. Over the last two decades, techniques such as ambient pressure (AP)XPS have been developed which extend the operating pressure into the mbar pressure regime, but this is still several orders of magnitude below the pressures used in many industrial processes. Dr. Baran Eran’s research group has developed and built a new type of micro-electrochemical reactor cells in the lab, where graphene acts as the catalyst bed and in some cases as the (co-)catalyst itself.

The true atomic thickness of graphene makes the functional materials, such as nanoparticles, that it supports, accessible to a surface- and chemically-sensitive characterization technique: XPS. The impressive impermeability of graphene to gasses and liquids allows gasses at atmospheric pressure or liquids with high vapor pressures to be confined on the reactor cell side, while a vacuum is still maintained on the electron analyzer side. With this approach, they are able to investigate the interface chemistry of electrocatalyst materials such as Ni, Fe, and Co during the oxygen evolution reaction, and plan to measure other interesting catalysts during the oxygen reduction reaction  and carbon dioxide reduction reaction. These reactions are highly relevant for the hydrogen economy and carbon dioxide utilization.