Designing and Architecting Battery Electrode Materials Across Length Scales

RSC Centenary Prizewinner's Seminar/Materials RIG Seminar

Professor Sarbajit Banerjee

  Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich
PSI Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, Paul Scherrer Institute

https://banerjeeresearch.com/banerjee-sarbajit/

ABSTRACT:

The design and operation of rechargeable batteries is predicated on orchestrating flows of mass, charge, and energy across multiple interfaces. Understanding such flows requires knowledge of atomistic and mesoscale diffusion pathways and the coupling of ion transport with electron conduction. Using multiple polymorphs of V2O5 as model systems, I will discuss our efforts to develop an Ångstrom-level view of ion diffusion pathways. Topochemical single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformations provide an atomistic perspective of how diffusion pathways are altered by modification of V—O connectivity, pre-intercalation, and high degrees of lithiation. Recently devised multi-step synthetic schemes enable the positioning of Li-ions across four distinct interstitial sites of a V2O5 insertion host and allow for deterministic redirection of Li-ion flows through site-selective modification.

At higher length scales, scanning transmission X-ray microscopy and ptychography imaging provide a means of mapping the accumulative results of atomic scale inhomogeneities at mesoscale dimensions and further enable tracing of stress gradients across individual particles. I will discuss strategies for the mitigation of diffusion impediments and degradation mechanisms based on controlling the coupling of chemistry, geometry, and mechanics. Some of these strategies include (a) utilization of Riemannian manifolds as a geometric design principle for electrode architectures; (b) atomistic design of polymorphs with well-defined diffusion pathways that provide frustrated coordination; and (c) site-selective modification as a means of tuning lattice incommensurability between lithiated and unlithiated phases.

BIO:

Sarbajit Banerjee, FRSC, FInstP, is a Full Professor of Chemistry at ETH Zürich and serves as Head of the Laboratory for Battery Science at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) in Villigen, Switzerland. Prior to starting his positions at ETH and PSI in December of 2024, he was the Davidson Chair in Science and a Professor of Chemistry and of Materials Science & Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College (B.Sc.) and the State University of New York at Stony Brook (Ph.D.). He was a post-doctoral research scientist at Columbia University prior to starting his independent career at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 200. At SUNY-Buffalo, he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2012. In 2014, Prof. Banerjee moved to Texas A&M University as a Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering and was named to the Davidson Chair in 2020. Recent major distinctions include the Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize (2025), the TMS Brimacombe Medal, and the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Science from The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and Science of Texas.