Advanced materials characterization of solid electrolytes and gas capture compounds for the future energy economy

Speaker: Dr. Hayden Evans, Research Chemist, NIST Center for Neutron Research, USA

Also on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87997973378?pwd=K1ZaWFQ3cmJlSGFsQnhSUjFMNTIzUT09

As the world faces perhaps its greatest existential crisis from climate change, there is more than a pressing interest in the development of materials for a fossil-fuel free economy. The areas of materials research vary, covering green energy generation, storage, transport, as well as remediation of pollutants. In this talk, I will discuss the materials characterization of two types of energy economy materials, as well as the overarching research and application challenges faced by each. Both works hinge on the understanding of structure-property relationships, and the talk will describe how neutron and synchrotron X-ray diffraction was essential to understanding each material. The first material discussed will be an emerging solid-state battery electrolyte material, Li3YCl6, which manifests a commonly seen issue of high-performing solid electrolytes; specifically, that its performance is paired with structural complexity and meta-stability.1 These properties ultimately add ambiguity as to how to best engineer better performing solid-state electrolyte-based batteries. I will also discuss gas adsorbents for CO2 capture, specifically the metal-organic framework (MOF) material aluminum formate (ALF).2 MOF adsorbents face their own advantages and disadvantages; namely, they are generally high performing and crystallographically well-defined, but are often cost-prohibitive, difficult to scale, and too chemically sensitive for industrial applications. ALF, on the other hand, presents a counter to these issues, in that it is high performing, can be made for roughly two dollars per kilogram, and is chemically robust. 

[1] Sebti, E., Evans, H.A., Chen, H., Richardson, P.M., White, K.M., Giovine, R., Koirala, K.P., Xu, Y., Gonzalez-Correa, E., Wang, C. and Brown, C.M., 2022. Stacking faults assist lithium-ion conduction in a halide-based superionic conductor. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 144(13), pp.5795-5811.

[2] Evans, H.A., Mullangi, D., Deng, Z., Wang, Y., Peh, S.B., Wei, F., Wang, J., Brown, C.M., Zhao, D., Canepa, P. and Cheetham, A.K., 2022. Aluminum formate, Al(HCOO)3: An earth-abundant, scalable, and highly selective material for CO2 capture. Science Advances, 8(44), p.eade1473.

If you are interested in meeting Dr. Evans, please contact Dr. Josh Bocarsly (jb2382@cam.ac.uk)