A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a novel, integrated approach to track energy-transporting ions within an ultra-thin material, which could unlock its energy storage potential leading toward faster charging, longer-lasting devices.
A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a novel, integrated approach to track energy-transporting ions within an ultra-thin material, which could unlock its energy storage potential leading toward faster charging, longer-lasting devices.
Scientists have for a decade studied the energy-storing possibilities of an emerging class of two-dimensional materials – those constructed in layers that are only a few atoms thick – called MXenes, pronounced “max-eens.”
The ORNL-led team integrated theoretical data from computational modeling of experimental data to pinpoint potential locations of a variety of charged ions in titanium carbide, the most studied MXene phase. Through this holistic approach, they could track and analyze the ions’ motion and behavior from the single-atom to the device scale.
“By comparing all the methods we employed, we were able to form links between theory and different types of materials characterization, ranging from very simple to very complex over a wide range of length and time scales,” said Nina Balke, ORNL co-author of the published study that was conducted within the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport, or FIRST, Center. FIRST is a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center located at ORNL.
Read more at DOE / Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Image: Charged ions, shown in green, move into ultra-thin layers of energy storage materials, shown as blue and brown dots, but are difficult to locate. A holistic approach to track the ions yielded knowledge useful toward improved energy storage devices. CREDIT: Nina Balke/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
