May 4 2009
Stony Brook University will be home to the new Northeastern Chemical Energy Storage Center (NOCESC), which involves a team of experimentalists and theorists at SBU (Clare P. Grey, Director and Peter Khalifah, in the Chemistry Department), Brookhaven National Laboratory (Jason Graetz and Xiao-Qing Yang), Rutgers, Binghamton University, MIT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U. Michigan, Argonne National Laboratory, and U. Florida.
A schematic of the lithium ion rechargeable battery, that is currently being used in numerous portable applications including lap-tops, cell-phones -- and is being developed for use in hybrid and plug-ion hybrid electric vehicles.
"This award is a great example of the world-class energy research that is being conducted at Stony Brook University," said Dr. Shirley Kenny, Stony Brook University President. "Clare Grey is an outstanding scientist; she is to be congratulated for her successful efforts in collaborating with colleagues from other institutions in this critical area."
"I am very excited by the opportunity to bring together a team of world experts at Stony Brook, Brookhaven National Laboratory and other leading US institutions to attack a series of key fundamental research issues that directly impact our ability to use lithium ion batteries in a wider range of applications -- particularly in combination with new renewable energy sources and in the field of transportation," said Clare Grey, who will be leading the project. "At Stony Brook, in addition to synthesizing and testing new materials we propose to develop new diagnostic tools to determine how batteries function and why they sometimes fail, so as to use this information to help design the next generation of lithium ion batteries."
The design of the next generation of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) requires both the development of new chemistries and an in-depth fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical processes that occur in these complex systems. The specific goals of this new center are to develop a fundamental understanding of how electrode reactions in LIBs occur, and how they can be tailored by appropriate electrode design (doping, particle size, shape, composite structure, etc.), so as to identify the critical structural and physical properties that are vital to improving battery performance. The results from the joint experimental and theory program will be used to help design the next generation of battery materials. The center will also develop new experimental probes of structure and function that will be of use to the entire battery community. An emphasis will be placed on the development of in situ methods that use multiple experimental tools simultaneously or that combine imaging with spectroscopy, so as to understand how batteries function over multiple time and length scales.