Topic 01-05 : Electrochemical and structural study of blended positive electrode materials for high power Li-ion batteries

The project will aim at understand synergistic effects between materials and specific contribution of each type of active material to capacity, reaction rate and degradation behavior of the blends.

Materials have been chosen based on application requirements. While LMO and Li-rich compounds are cheap materials with relatively high gravimetric energy density, layered NMC oxides provide high power and high volumetric energy density. Structural characterization (diffraction) will be coupled to electrochemistry to reveal internal dynamics between the constituents under cycling conditions and rest at different temperatures and in different electrochemical setups (3 electrode laboratory cells or 2 electrode coin cells). Strong emphasis will be placed in combination of advanced electrochemical methods to structural and microstructural characterization.  Operando diffraction experiments are foreseen at the laboratory scale, which will be coupled to proposals to request beamtime at large scale infrastructures (synchrotron, neutron). The use of complementary spectroscopic techniques such as XPS, X-ray absorption, Raman, ssNMR, etc. is also foreseen.

It is estimated that the student will spend 50% of the time at each institution (CIC-Energigune in Vitoria and ICMAB-CSIC in Barcelona, both north of Spain) following a flexible schedule depending on experiment organization and outcome. In addition to that, he/she will perform a 3 months secondment at Umicore premises at a relative early stage of the project to carry out specific electrochemical and physical tests on blended electrodes and benefit from exposure to the industrial environment.

Contact

PhD Supervisor : Rosa Palacin (rosa.palacin@icmab.es)