£29 MILLION INVESTMENT TO SUPPORT CRITICAL BATTERY RESEARCH

The Faraday Battery Challenge and Faraday Institution, the UK’s leading institute for electrochemical energy storage research, are investing £29 million in six key battery research projects aimed at delivering commercial impact, and Oxford research is prominent.

Four of the six selected projects involve researchers from across the University of Oxford’s Mathematical, Physical, and Life Sciences Division. The investment will fund research in these areas over the next two years to 31 March 2025.

Professor Pam Thomas, CEO, Faraday Institution, commented, ‘The Faraday Institution is committed to identifying and investing in the most promising and impactful battery research initiatives. This project refocusing is an important part of that process, and allows us to direct even more effort towards those areas of research that offer the maximum potential of delivering societal, environmental, and commercial impact.’

Professor Mauro Pasta, from the University of Oxford’s Department of Materials, will be taking the position of Principal Investigator for the Solid-state Batteries (SOLBAT) project.

The ambition of SOLBAT is to demonstrate the feasibility of a solid-state battery that has superior performance to lithium-ion in electric vehicle (EV) applications. This could increase the range of EV batteries by safely implementing metallic lithium anodes, reduce recharging time, and address safety concerns by removing the need for flammable liquid electrolytes.

SOLBAT was established to address fundamental research challenges facing the realisation of solid-state batteries, and to develop solutions that can scale to commercially competitive products. The new funding will enable the project to focus on failure mechanisms and develop solutions for anode, cathode, and electrolyte technology.

Professor Pasta said: ‘We are grateful to the Faraday Institution for the continued support of the SOLBAT project. This new investment will allow us to maintain momentum in our progress towards understanding and addressing the scientific roadblocks that are hindering the commercialisation of solid-state batteries.

The project consists of three Work Packages, led by Professor Sir Peter Bruce and Professor Patrick Grant (Department of Materials) and Professor Charlotte Williams (Department of Chemistry). SOLBAT also involves researchers from Newcastle University and Diamond Light Source.

Oxford researchers are also involved in a battery degradation investigation led by the Universities of Cambridge and Warwick. They include Professor Robert Weatherup, postdoctoral researchers Dr Erik Bjorkland and Dr Pravin Didwal, and DPhil student Michael Fraser from the University of Oxford’s Department of Materials.

The Battery Degradation project is examining how environmental factors and internal battery stresses (such as high temperatures and the charging process) degrade EV batteries over time. A key goal of the project is to use advanced modelling to help enable rapid charging of EV batteries: a crucial step towards mass adoption of the technology.

Oxford researchers are also involved in a lithium-sulfur batteries inquiry (LiSTAR) led by University College London (UCL).

They include Professor Mauro Pasta, Postdoctoral student Soochan Kim and DPhil student Yvonne Chart from the Department of Materials, and Dr Georgina Gregory (Department of Chemistry).

Compared with conventional lithium-ion batteries, lithium-sulphur (Li-S) cells store more energy per unit weight, can operate in a wider temperature range, and may also offer safety and cost improvements. But widespread use of Li-S faces major hurdles that stem from sulfur’s insulating nature, migration of discharge products leading to the loss of active material, and degradation of the anode.

LiSTAR is addressing these challenges by generating new knowledge, materials, and engineering solutions across four key areas: cathodes, electrolytes, modelling platforms, and device engineering.

Finally, there is the Multi-scale Modelling project led by Imperial College London, that involves the Oxford academics Professor Charles Monroe, Professor David Howey, and Dr Nicola Courtier from the Department of Engineering Science; Professor Jon Chapman and Professor Colin Please from the Mathematical Institute; and Dr Martin Robinson from the Department of Computer Science.

Accurate simulations of batteries could enable makers to improve battery designs and performance without having to create expensive prototypes to test every new material or design. The Multi-scale Modelling project is addressing this by developing new digital and experimental techniques for understanding battery behaviour at a range of different physical scales (from the nanoscale to whole-pack level) and time frames (from nanosecond atomic processes through to long-term degradation). Ultimately, this will enable fast, accurate models that incorporate the most complete physics and advanced mathematical techniques, developed to be directly usable for industry.