The Expanse supercomputer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences has played an important role in helping researchers design the next generation of batteries that could make large-scale energy storage cheaper and more sustainable.
Today's grid and electric vehicles rely heavily on lithium-ion batteries, but lithium is relatively expensive and unevenly distributed globally. Sodium, by contrast, is abundant and inexpensive—the same element found in table salt—which makes sodium-based batteries an appealing option for big battery installations that back up solar and wind power. The challenge has been getting sodium batteries to deliver enough power while also lasting for many charge–discharge cycles.
In a new study published in Advanced Energy Materials, scientists from UC San Diego worked with international colleagues to better understand the battery's positive electrode, known as the cathode. They started from an existing sodium-based material and experimented with adding very small amounts of lithium and titanium, like adjusting the seasoning in a recipe.
"These subtle changes turned out to matter a lot: the modified material could store more energy and remained stable even when the battery was pushed to higher voltages, a key requirement for getting more energy out of each charge," explained Professor Shirley Meng, who is the faculty director for the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering and a professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.\
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