Researchers will advance battery technologies going beyond current lithium ion capabilities

Maximizing the benefits of clean energy requires new ways to store it, and University of Michigan engineers will partner in a new research hub created by the U.S Department of Energy, designed to develop and further battery innovations.

It is one of two new Energy Innovation Hubs led by national laboratories across the country. Argonne National Laboratory will lead the Energy Storage Research Alliance involving 12 universities and two additional national labs.

The hub is established with $62.5 million in funding over five years from the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Science. The group, including U-M, will tackle key issues in the development of new batteries and energy storage devices.

“The demand for high-performance, low-cost and sustainable energy storage devices is on the rise, especially those with potential to deeply decarbonize heavy-duty transportation and the electric grid,” said Shirley Meng, chief scientist at the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science. “To achieve this, energy storage technology must reach levels of unprecedented performance, surpassing the capabilities of current lithium ion technology.

“The key to making these transformative leaps lies in a robust research and development initiative firmly grounded in basic science.”

ESRA will tap U-M’s expertise in battery development, particularly in performance modeling.

“One of the strengths of the U-M team is our multifaceted expertise in in situ/operando methods, which allow us to literally ‘see inside’ of a battery as it is operating,” said Neil Dasgupta, U-M associate professor of both mechanical engineering and materials and science engineering. “We use a range of probes for these examinations that span length-scales from atoms to centimeters.

“By combining these in situ analysis methods with electrochemical signatures of battery operation, we can enable new modes of battery analytics and generate unique data sets that can inform computational models, including those aided by machine learning methods.”

Michigan engineers will also look to bolster some of the latest alternatives to lithium ion technology.

“Among the various battery types of interest to ESRA is the redox flow battery, which is a promising but early-stage technology for long-duration, grid-scale storage of renewable (e.g., solar and wind) energy,” said David Kwabi, U-M assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Our expertise will be brought to bear in discovering materials and architectures for improving the capacities and efficiencies of these systems, bringing them closer to practical deployment.”

The Argonne-led hub will also place a central focus on training a diverse, next-generation battery workforce for future manufacturing needs through innovative training programs with industry, academia and government.

“Cultivating a diverse workforce dedicated to safeguarding America’s energy resilience is key to ESRA’s mission,” said Wei Wang, ESRA deputy director and director of the Energy Storage Materials Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Through our strategic equity and inclusion initiatives, we plan to create a robust training ground for energy storage science from the undergraduate to postdoctoral levels.”

U-M and the other university partners will make crucial contributions in this arena.

“We plan to not only train students enrolled at U-M but will also begin a program for visiting undergraduate students from across the state and the country to work with us at U-M on energy storage research,” said Yiyang Li, U-M assistant professor of materials science and engineering.

Along with Argonne and U-M, ESRA members include: Columbia University; Duke University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Princeton University; University of California, San Diego; University of Chicago; University of Houston; University of Illinois, Chicago; University of Illinois; Utah State University; Xavier University; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit: https://energy.gov/science.

Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation Hub led by Argonne National Laboratory, brings together nearly 50 world-class researchers from three national laboratories and 12 universities to advance energy storage and next-generation battery discovery. ESRA will enable transformative discoveries in materials chemistry, gain a fundamental understanding of electrochemical phenomena at the atomic scale, lay the scientific foundations for breakthroughs in energy storage technologies, and train a next-generation battery workforce to ensure U.S. scientific and economic leadership. For more information, visit: https://energystoragera.org/