Operando characterisation to capture battery interface dynamics

Rechargeable batteries are an essential component of our modern world, powering everything from smartphones to electric vehicles.

To meet the increasing demands for sustainable energy, researchers are constantly working to improve battery performance.Here, the contacts between electrodes and electrolyte play a crucial role but access to these interfaces is difficult to achieve.

Operando interface sensitive battery characterization tools are thus typically limited to model systems and require complex electrochemical setups, making it difficult to directly transfer insights to real-world batteries.We aim to address these limitations and use surface and interface sensitive characterization methods such as ambient pressure photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) to understand interfacial battery processes in operando mode.

By focusing on a versatile model electrode system based on titanium disulfide (TiS2) and spanning multiple battery chemistries form Li to Na and Ca, the proposal aims to establish reliable workflows, understand interfacial charge transfer, follow the formation of battery interphases in real time, achieve transferrable results from model systems to real world batteries, and apply operando techniques to sustainable post-Li ion battery systems for the future.

The vision is to develop new materials and strategies to increase interphase stability and functionality leading to future, high-performance and sustainable batteries.