Electrochemical energy storage systems are categorized into different types, according to their mechanisms, including capacitors, supercapacitors, batteries and fuel cells. All battery systems include some main components: anode, cathode, an aqueous/non-aqueous electrolyte and a membrane that separates anode and cathode while being permeable to ions. Being one of the key parts of any new electr...

A key obstacle to practical operation of protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) is the development of high efficient cathode materials. In this study, we report the identification of Gd0.1Ce0.9O2-d (GDC) infiltrated PrBaCo2O5þd (PBC) e BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.2O3-d (BZCY) materials as a novel triple phase (e /Hþ/O2 ) conducting composite cathode of PCFCs. This triple phase conducting composite cathode is c...

The Transverse Energy Spread Spectrometer (TESS) is an ASTeC experiment designed to measure the energy of electrons from different cathode materials. It is a dedicated test stand for future light sources. A full particle tracking code has been developed in the QUASAR Group, which simulates particle trajectories through TESS. Using this code it is possible to simulate different operational condi...

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) offer electrochemically generated sources of electricity using oxygen ion transport at elevated temperatures. Analysis of materials used in SOFC using electron microscopy provides insights of foreseeable chemical reactions that govern the performance of the fuel cell. Materials used in SOFC can be divided into four categories; anode, cathode, electrolyte and interc...

In order to meet the growing demand of the rapidly-miniaturized electronics and high-power mobile devices (i.e. hybrid electric vehicles), a lot of new electrode materials are studied to replace the traditional LiCoO2 (cathode) and graphite (anode). Cu-V-O compounds with high capacity (~250-500 mAh.g -1 ) have emerged as one of the most promising cathode materials for next-generation lithium io...

An electrochemically-active high-temperature form of LiCoO2 (HT-LiCoO2) is prepared by thermally decomposing its constituent metal-nitrates at 700 oC. The synthetic conditions have been optimized to achieve improved performance with the HT-LiCoO2 cathode in Li-ion batteries. For this purpose, the synthesized materials have been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron micros...

An exfoliation-reassembly-activation (ERA) approach to lithium-ion battery cathode fabrication is introduced, demonstrating that inactive HCoO(2) powder can be converted into a reversible Li(1-x) H(x) CoO(2) thin-film cathode. This strategy circumvents the inherent difficulties often associated with the powder processing of the layered solids typically employed as cathode materials. The delam...

Cathode materials are crucial to improved battery performance, in part because there are not yet materials that can maintain high power and stable cycling with a capacity comparable to that of anode materials. Our parameter-free, gradient-corrected model for electron-positron correlations predicts that spectroscopies based on positron annihilation can be deployed to study the effect of lithium ...

Li-ion batteries are used in many applications in everyday life: cell phones, laser pointers, laptops, cordless drillers or saws, bikes and even cars. Yet, there is room for improvement in order to make the batteries smaller and last longer. The Fromm group contributes to this research focusing mainly on nanoscale lithium ion cathode materials. This contribution gives an overview over our curre...

This communication reports on the design, fabrication and testing of special high temperature Si/SiN based micro-hotplates as micromachined platforms for micro-SOFCs. Different designs and materials have been evaluated to realise micro-heating platforms compatible with spray pyrolysed anode, cathode and electrolytes materials. The potential of these micromachined platforms for further integrati...