Symposium CH03-Advanced Characterizations of Heterogeneities in Electrochemical Energy Storage Materials

Electrochemical Energy storage materials are the key for Li-ion and next-generation batteries, in which the unexpected early failures and elusive safety accidents, especially the life-threatening fires and explosions have become an critical concern. Failures of batteries are known to originate from microscopic, even atomic scale, heterogeneities. Capturing their early onsets by interpreting the subtle changes in global physical observables like the terminal voltage, total current, or temperature will not be possible unless a clear correlation with the microscale physics can be established. This necessitates the concurrent observations of the electrochemical transients and the physical changes of the materials and their interfaces.

This symposium will cover current and emerging characterization methods, their critical discoveries, and the dynamic theories for the reaction or charge heterogeneities in electrode materials across multiple time and length scales. The symposium will feature the operando methods, in which the chemical, structural and morphological evolutions of materials and interfaces are recorded while practical electrochemical excitations (e.g., constant current or constant potential) are applied. The symposium aims to stimulate constructive discussions between two types of works: (1) results obtained from relatively small field of view with very high resolution that reveal the local behaviors; and (2) results from large field of view with relatively low resolution but can reveal how the heterogeneities evolve throughout the practical electrode. Synergizing these two types of complementary works will help connect the atomic-level materials science with device-level performance, which is critical for the seamless rational design of better batteries.

Topics will include:

Reaction heterogeneities in intercalation electrodes
Morphological instabilities in metallic anodes
Heterogeneity in solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI)
Heterogeneity evolutions at the interfaces of all solid-state batteries
Theory, modeling, and simulations of electrode heterogeneities and instabilities

Invited Speakers:

Martin Bazant (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Miaofang Chi (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA)
William Chueh (Stanford University, USA)
Neil Dasgupta (University of Michigan, USA)
Yan-Yan Hu (Florida State University, USA)
Feng Lin (Virginia Tech, USA)
Yijin Liu (Stanford University, USA)
Matthew McDowell (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Partha Mukherjee (Purdue University, USA)
Joaquin Rodriguez-Lopez (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Albert Alec Talin (Sandia National Laboratories, USA)
Yan Yao (University of Houston, USA)
Kejie Zhao (Purdue University, USA)
Haimei Zheng (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA)

Symposium Organizers

Peng Bai

Washington University in St. Louis

USA

Donal Finegan

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

USA

Hui (Claire) Xiong

Boise State University

USA

Yuan Yang

Columbia University

USA

Topics

diffusion electrodeposition in situ kinetics modeling nucleation & growth operando phase transformation reactivity surface chemistry