To push battery performance, researchers want to learn how the individual ingredients of battery materials behave beneath the surface. But many techniques only scratch the surface of what’s at work inside batteries. A high-sensitivity x-ray technique is attracting a growing group of scientists because it provides a deeper, more precise dive into battery chemistry. Read more »
ALS Work Using RIXS
Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is a photon-in/photon-out spectroscopy where both the energy and momentum of the scattered photons could be measured. A full-energy-range mapping of RIXS (mRIXS) is collected by sweeping the incident x-ray photon energy across the absorption edge of interest, and the inelastically scattered photon energy is detected by a spectrometer. Critical RIXS features often correspond to various low-energy charge, spin, orbital, and lattice excitations. At the ALS, an iRIXS endstation has been developed for high-efficiency mRIXS experiments.
Full Energy Range Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering of O2 and CO2: Direct Comparison with Oxygen Redox State in Batteries
The evolving oxygen state plays key roles in the performance and stability of high-energy batteries involving oxygen redox reactions. Comparison of the mRIXS profiles of four different oxygen states reveals that oxygen redox states in batteries have distinct widths and positions along the excitation energy. Read more »
How a New Electrocatalyst Enables Ultrafast Reactions
With key data from the ALS, researchers discovered how a new, low-cost electrocatalyst enables an important oxygen reaction to proceed at an ultrafast rate. The work provides rational guidance for the development of better electrocatalysts for applications such as hydrogen-fuel production and long-range batteries for electric vehicles. Read more »
Fingerprint Oxygen Redox Reactions in Batteries through High-Efficiency Mapping of Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering
We provide a comprehensive analysis and an explicit interpretation of the five evolving components of O-K mRIXS of the typical battery electrode that involves lattice oxygen redox reactions upon cycling. This work is the first benchmark for a complete assignment of all the important mRIXS features collected from battery materials, and thus delivers guidelines for future studies of oxygen redox reactions. Read more »
Reversible Lattice-Oxygen Reactions in Batteries
Researchers quantified a strong, beneficial, and reversible (over hundreds of cycles) chemical reaction involving oxygen ions in the crystal lattice of battery electrode materials. The results open up new ways to explore how to pack more energy into batteries with electrodes made out of low-cost, common materials. Read more » 
New Clues to Oxygen’s Role in Higher-Capacity Batteries
As battery electrodes, layered transition-metal (TM) oxides demonstrate storage capacities far beyond what’s explained solely by TM redox activity. In this work, measurements of the lattice oxygen redox activity in two lithium-rich layered oxides showed strong oxygen redox when manganese was the TM, but not with ruthenium. Read more »
A facile route for the synthesis of heterogeneous crystal structures in hierarchical architectures with vacancy-driven defects via the oriented attachment growth mechanism
TiO2 nanorod arrays based on substrates with heterogeneous crystal structures and remarkable crystalline stability have potential as promising photocatalysts. Researchers synthesized a 1D anatase/rutile heterogeneous TiO2 crystal structure in a hierarchical architecture by forming hybrid organic–inorganic interfaces in a solution-based environment. Read more »
Monovalent Manganese for High-Performance Batteries
Scientists have detected a novel chemical state of the element manganese that was first proposed about 90 years ago. The discovery enables the design of a high-performance, low-cost battery that, according to its developers, outperforms Department of Energy goals on cost and cycle life for grid-scale energy storage. Read more »
Scientists Confirm Century-Old Speculation on the Chemistry of a High-Performance Battery
Scientists have discovered a novel chemical state of the element manganese. This chemical state, first proposed about 90 years ago, enables a high-performance, low-cost sodium-ion battery that could quickly and efficiently store and distribute energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines across the electrical grid. Read more »
A Path to a Game-Changing Battery Electrode
If you add more lithium to the positive electrode of a lithium-ion battery, it can store much more charge in the same amount of space, theoretically powering an electric car 30 to 50 percent farther between charges. But these lithium-rich cathodes quickly lose voltage, and years of research have not been able to pin down why—until now. Read more »
