Battery research: visualisation of aging processes operando

‘A lot happens at the interfaces between the anode, separator and cathode while a battery is charging or discharging’

02-May-2025 - Lithium button cells with electrodes made of nickel-manganese-cobalt oxides (NMC) are very powerful. Unfortunately, their capacity decreases over time. Now, for the first time, a team has used a non-destructive method to observe how the elemental composition of the individual layers in a button ...

The Secret Life of Catalysts

New Discoveries in Chemical Reactions

30-Jan-2025 - Scientists from the Interface Science Department of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in collaboration with beamline scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have made an advancement in the field of electrocatalysis. Their latest research, published in the journal Nature ...

Lithium-sulphur pouch cells investigated at BESSY II

Degradation processes examined

10-Jan-2025 - A team from HZB and the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology (IWS) in Dresden has gained new insights into lithium-sulphur pouch cells at the BAMline of BESSY II. Supplemented by analyses in the HZB imaging laboratory and further measurements, a new picture emerges of processes ...

Largest magnetic anisotropy of a molecule measured at BESSY II

03-Jan-2025 - At the Berlin synchrotron radiation source BESSY II, the largest magnetic anisotropy of a single molecule ever measured experimentally has been determined. The larger this anisotropy is, the better a molecule is suited as a molecular nanomagnet. Such nanomagnets have a wide range of potential ...

Unique X-ray microscope paves the way to more powerful batteries

New insights into the morphological and chemical changes in battery materials

21-Nov-2024 - New cathode materials are being developed to further increase the capacity of lithium batteries. Multilayer lithium-rich transition metal oxides (LRTMOs) offer particularly high energy density. However, their capacity decreases with each charging cycle due to structural and chemical changes. ...

New procedure for better thermoplastics

New insights thanks to nano imaging and spectroscopy at the IRIS beamline of BESSY II

06-Nov-2024 - Bio-based thermoplastics are produced from renewable organic materials and can be recycled after use. Their resilience can be improved by blending bio-based thermoplastics with other thermoplastics. However, the interface between the materials in these blends sometimes requires enhancement to ...

How solid-state batteries degrade

What happens during operation?

12-Jul-2024 - Solid-state batteries have several advantages: they can store more energy and are safer than batteries with liquid electrolytes. However, they do not last as long and their capacity decreases with each charge cycle. But it doesn't have to stay that way: Researchers are already on the trail of the ...

Sodium-ion batteries: How doping works

Three years of experiments at BESSY II, PETRA III, and SOLARIS

23-Feb-2024 - Sodium-ion batteries still have a number of weaknesses that could be remedied by optimising the battery materials. One possibility is to dope the cathode material with foreign elements. A team from HZB and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has now investigated the effects of doping with Scandium and ...

Molecular orbitals determine stability

The results could also help industry to optimise the stability of coordination polymers

14-Feb-2024 - Carboxylic acid dianions (fumarate, maleate and succinate) play a role in coordination chemistry and to some extent also in the biochemistry of body cells. An HZB team at BESSY II has now analysed their electronic structures using RIXS in combination with DFT simulations. The results provide ...

Green hydrogen: Improving the stability of iridium catalysts with titanium oxides

High relevance for practical use

18-Dec-2023 - Anodes for the electrolytic splitting of water are usually iridium-based materials. In order to increase the stability of the iridium catalyst, a team at HZB and a group at HI-ERN have now produced a so-called material library: a sample in which the concentration of iridium and titanium oxides is ...