Award Abstract # 2045570
CAREER: Understanding Chemical, Structural and Redox Properties of Disordered Metal Oxides

NSF Org: DMR
Division Of Materials Research
Recipient: VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE & STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: February 25, 2021
Latest Amendment Date: August 21, 2023
Award Number: 2045570
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Birgit Schwenzer
bschwenz@nsf.gov
 (703)292-4771
DMR
 Division Of Materials Research
MPS
 Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Start Date: April 1, 2021
End Date: March 31, 2026 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $604,401.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $659,401.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2021 = $234,775.00
FY 2022 = $55,000.00

FY 2023 = $369,626.00
History of Investigator:
  • Feng Lin (Principal Investigator)
    fenglin@vt.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
300 TURNER ST NW
BLACKSBURG
VA  US  24060-3359
(540)231-5281
Sponsor Congressional District: 09
Primary Place of Performance: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
1040 Drllfield Drive
Blacksburg
VA  US  24061-1053
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
09
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): QDE5UHE5XD16
Parent UEI: X6KEFGLHSJX7
NSF Program(s): SOLID STATE & MATERIALS CHEMIS
Primary Program Source: 01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002324DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 019Z, 1045, 8396, 8399
Program Element Code(s): 176200
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.049

ABSTRACT

Non-Technical Summary

This CAREER project, supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry Program in the Division of Materials Research, advances fundamental insights into eventually designing higher energy, higher power, and more stable rechargeable batteries to meet the demand of the rapid-growing electric vehicle and energy storage market. Energy storage is a vital technology to enable the widespread adoption of renewable energy and to accelerate the technological advancement towards negative CO2 emission. The Li ion battery technology represents one of the most important energy storage technologies. Further development of Li ion batteries calls for more fundamental studies that can reveal reaction mechanisms and inform the design of new materials. Despite many years of materials development, most commercial Li-ion batteries still rely on several cathode materials that are derived from intercalation materials discovered in the 1980s. In these conventional materials, there are defined pathways for Li ions to transport. Recently, there have been exciting discoveries in new battery materials with disordered Li ion transport pathways. Unfortunately, these materials exhibit inferior battery performance compared to conventional materials, although theoretically they should provide much higher capacity. This project uses advanced experimental methods to develop fundamental understanding of electrochemical processes in these new disordered materials. The successful outcome of this project will establish a knowledge base for further improving these materials. This project also seamlessly integrates research with educating the future workforce for the United States. It provides learning opportunities for elementary students with dyslexia in Southwest Virginia. Dyslexic students, an underrepresented group in STEM fields, can be enormous intellectual assets as history, for example in the field of battery research, has taught us. Separately from this effort, the CAREER project also establishes a sustainable educational program between Virginia Tech and national labs, allowing undergraduate students to perform research in national labs. Overall, through this CAREER project Prof. Lin educates several underrepresented minority students, helping them to excel at performing scientific research and to become future leaders in the energy storage field.


Technical Summary

This CAREER project, supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry Program in the Division of Materials Research, investigates the structure-property relationship for an emerging family of advanced battery materials. The hypothesis underlying the various research objectives of this project is that Li-rich disordered rocksalt oxides, with a globally disordered Li percolating network and combined cationic/anionic redox activities, can potentially increase battery energy density far beyond what is delivered by conventional layered cathodes. However, so far their irreversible chemical and structural transformations during electrochemical cycling have impeded their practical applications. Prof. Lin and his research group carry out holistic fundamental studies to understand how the chemical, structural, and redox properties transform at multiple length and time scales, during materials synthesis and under electrochemical operating conditions in order to resolve these daunting challenges. The project employs experimental methods, including synchrotron X-ray techniques and electrochemical diagnostics, to accomplish the following objectives: (1) probing and controlling the evolution of local coordination environment and global average phase during mechanosynthesis, (2) investigating the redox chemistry as a function of chemical composition, local coordination environment, global phase characteristics, and electrochemistry, and (3) quantifying the multiscale evolution of local coordination environment, global average phase, and redox chemistry upon prolonged electrochemical cycling. Taken together, results from these studies provide mechanistic insights into and advance the electrochemistry of disordered rocksalt oxide.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Xia, Dawei and Rosenberg, Keith and Li, Yilin and Hu, Anyang and Sun, Chengjun and Li, Luxi and Nordlund, Dennis and Sainio, Sami and Huang, Haibo and Lin, Feng "Rechargeable Manganese Dioxide||Hard Carbon Lithium Batteries in an Ether Electrolyte" Journal of The Electrochemical Society , v.171 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ad3415 Citation Details
Xia, Dawei and Tao, Lei and Hou, Dong and Hu, Anyang and Sainio, Sami and Nordlund, Dennis and Sun, Chengjun and Xiao, Xianghui and Li, Luxi and Huang, Haibo and Lin, Feng "A Green, FireRetarding Ether Solvent for Sustainable HighVoltage LiIon Batteries at Standard Salt Concentration" Advanced Energy Materials , v.14 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202400773 Citation Details
Xiao, Xianghui and Xu, Zhengrui and Lin, Feng and Lee, Wah-Keat "TXM-Sandbox : an open-source software for transmission X-ray microscopy data analysis" Journal of Synchrotron Radiation , v.29 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600577521011978 Citation Details
Zhang, Yuxin and Hu, Anyang and Hou, Dong and Kwon, Gihan and Xia, Dawei and Li, Luxi and Lin, Feng "A Comparative Study of Degradation Behaviors of LiFePO <sub>4</sub> , LiMn <sub>2</sub> O <sub>4</sub> , and LiNi <sub>0.8</sub> Mn <sub>0.1</sub> Co <sub>0.1</sub> O <sub>2</sub> in Different Aqueous Electrolytes" Journal of The Electrochemical Society , v.171 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1149/1945-7111/ad24c0 Citation Details
Zhang, Yuxin and Hu, Anyang and Liu, Jue and Xu, Zhengrui and Mu, Linqin and Sainio, Sami and Nordlund, Dennis and Li, Luxi and Sun, ChengJun and Xiao, Xianghui and Liu, Yijin and Lin, Feng "Investigating Particle SizeDependent Redox Kinetics and Charge Distribution in Disordered Rocksalt Cathodes" Advanced Functional Materials , v.32 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202110502 Citation Details
Zheng, Xuerong and Xu, Zhengrui and Li, Shaofeng and Zhang, Yuxin and Zhang, Jinfeng and Kuai, Chunguang and Tao, Lei and Rahman, Muhammad Mominur and Zhang, Yan and Lee, Sang-Jun and Sun, Cheng-Jun and Li, Luxi and Hu, Wenbin and Nordlund, Dennis and Liu "Reversible Mn/Cr dual redox in cation-disordered Li-excess cathode materials for stable lithium ion batteries" Acta Materialia , v.212 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2021.116935 Citation Details

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