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Better ways to store energy are critical to becoming more energy efficient.  One of the keys to advances in energy storage lies in both finding novel materials and in understanding how current and new materials function.  The NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES) is an effort being led by Binghamton University, and includes as partners Rutgers University , Argonne National Laboratory,  Cambridge University, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of California at San Diego. The Center supports basic research in the design of the next generation of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs), which requires both the development of new chemistries and the fundamental understanding of the physical and chemical processes that occur in these complex systems.
Intercalation
The mission of the Center is to develop an understanding of how key electrode reactions occur, and how they can be controlled to improve electrochemical performance, from the atomistic level to the macroscopic level through the life-time of the operating battery. Three thrust areas have been established in order to achieve the Center's goals: intercalation materials, transport in mesoscale systems and one cross-cutting on characterization.
 
                                         RESEARCH PLAN
The processes that occur in batteries are complex, spanning a wide range of time and length scale. The team of experimentalists and theorists will make the use of, and develop new methodologies to determine how model compound electrodes function in real time, as batteries are cycled.
 
The Four-year Goals of the Center are: 
  1. Close the gap between the theoretical and practical energy density for intercalation compounds. 
  2. Attain reversible multi-electron transfer in a cathode material using lithium.
  3. Understand performance limiting transport in positive electrode structures from the local through the meso to the macroscale.
  4. Enable new chemistries involving electrode systems that were previously considered intractable for use in batteries.
These goals will be achieved by dividing our research efforts into three closely connected and integrated thrusts: a theory effort is integrated into thrusts 1 and 2. 
 
Thrust 1: Intercalation Materials Chemistry. This thrust will identify the key parameters that are required to optimize intercalation reactions in the active material in the electrodes.
 
Thrust 2: Electrode Transport - Establishing the Local-Meso-Macro Scale Continuum. This thrust will establish a comprehensive understanding of the ionic and electronic transport in model electrode materials and establish a direct link to electrochemical performance through the correlation of physical phenomena in the increasingly complex hierarchy of a model battery electrode. 
 
Thrust 3: Cross-Cutting Diagnostics: Developing the characterization and diagnostic tools to investigate battery function. This thrust will involve the development of novel in- and ex-situ experimental approaches aimed at probing electrical energy storage (EES) materials at three levels: atom, single crystal/particle, and across the electrode hetero structure.

FUNDED BY

us department of energy office of science

NY state division of science, technology and innovation

NYSERDA

Any opinions, finding, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do no necessary reflect the views of NY Empire State Development or NYSERDA.

This website is based on research funded primarily by the EFRC program of the US Department of Energy (DOE), under Award Number DE-SC0012583, with additional support provided by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), and New York State Energy Research Development Authority (NYSERDA). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DoE, NYSTAR, or NYSERDA.

News

March 2018

Dr. Shirley Meng has been selected to receive the 2018 ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award.  She will be recognized for her award at the Fall ACS Meeting in Boston, MA. More

NECCES research appears in the first article of the Frontiers in Energy Research, entitled "Catching a Battery in the Act: Lithium-ion battery operation revealed in real time by scientists at NECCES", as written by graduate student, Zachary Lebens-Higgins. More

Dr. Jordi Cabana, in partnership with LBNL, developed a new technique, X-ray ptychographic tomography, that lets them pin point the location of chemical reactions happening inside the lithium-ion battery in three dimensions at the nanoscale level. More

Dr. Katsuyo Thorton has been appointed the L. H. and F. E. Van Vlack Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Michigan and will  be receiving the TMS Brimacomb Metal at the 2018 TMS Meeting in March. More

February 2018

Previous NECCES Post-Doctoral Associate, Dr. Shailesh Upreti's start-up company Imperium3 (iM3) NY has just acquired the Alevo battery plant in Concord, North Carolina and will be moving this plant to NY to fast-track local production. More

Director M. Stanley Whittingham was elected as a member to the National Academy of Engineers. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. More

January 2018

Dr. Shirley Meng received the Young Career Award and Dr. Stan Whittingham received the Life-time Achievement Award from the International Coalition for Energy Storage and Innovation. More

Three members of NECCES won an award from the Scialog: Advanced Energy Storage competition, resulting from their collaborative proposal written during the conference. More

November 2017

The Frontiers in Energy Research, the EFRC newsletter, has just released their Fall 2017 edition, including an article from Zachary Lebens-Higgins, entitled "Electricity-Free Cooling". More

Dr. Hui Zhou was hired to be the Battery Facilities Manager for the NECCES Battery Dry Room, located in the Center of Excellence on Binghamton University's (BU) campus. More

October 2017

Shawn Sallis of Binghamton University has received a Collaborative Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for two years. More

Graduate student, Zachary Lebens-Higgins, was awarded the ALS Doctoral in Residence Award for 2016-17. The fellowships enable students who have advanced to candidacy to spend a year in residence at LBNL. More.

Mark Wolfman, NECCES Graduate Student from University of Illinois at Chicago, received the Department of Energy's Science Graduate Research Program (ScGRP) Award. More.

Last Updated: 3/22/18