19June 2022 ESRFnews

ENERGY STORAGE

STORING energy is a necessity for a clean world, yet the humble electric battery is beset with challenges. Capacities are too small, charging times are too long, lifetimes are too short, and the materials themselves are, on the whole, costly, scarce and energy-intensive to extract. Better batteries are urgently needed, but quite how to make them is one of the biggest issues in applied science. This might seem strange, given that electric battery

technology dates back at least 200 years, and all the essential material, mechanical and electrochemical processes are well-understood. The problem, according to Didier Blanchard, an engineer in the ESRF s Busi- ness Development Office (BDO), is that real batteries

An open-innovation test bed is boosting the prospects for cutting-edge commercial batteries.

are complex systems in which the underlying processes continuously feed off one another, pushing the system out of equilibrium. In a lithium-ion battery, for example, charging can cause different components of the cell to swell, which in turn can affect the diffusion of lithium into the electrodes and the resultant exchange of charges. That s why you have to study them operando, in real working conditions, says Blanchard. Europe is fortunate to have a swathe of facilities that

can help with such studies, not least the ESRF. But it is not always easy for industry scientists who are not experts in the plethora of techniques on offer to know where to go. For that reason, in 2019 the ESRF joined nine other

SHUTTERSTOCK/ASHARKYU

Charging ahead