1 1 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | M A R C H 2 0 2 3 EMERGING TECHNOLOGY 4D SCANNING FOR BETTER BATTERIES A team of multidisciplinary researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are combining a powerful new microscopy technique and data mining to design better rechargeable ion batteries. The combination strategy helps scientists visually pinpoint areas of chemical and physical alterations within batteries, enabling them tomap out altered domains at the nanoscale for the first time. According to the researchers, their 4D scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) method maps otherwise inaccessible variations of crystallinity and domain orientations inside materials. Previously, these types of microstructural heterogeneity transformations have only been studied in ceramics and metallurgy—until the initiation of this new work with batteries. The team compared its 4D-STEM observations to computational modeling to identify variations and study patterns in the nucleation, growth, and coalescence processes. “The impact of this research can go beyond the multivalent ion battery system studied here,” explains researcher Paul Braun. “The concept, principles, and the enabling characterization framework apply to electrodes in a variety of Li-ion and post-Li-ion batteries as well as other electrochemical systems including fuel cells, synaptic transistors, and electrochromics.” illinois.edu. EFFICIENT PHOTOVOLTAIC WINDOWS FOR SKYSCRAPERS Skyscrapers can be made more energy efficient through the addition of thermally efficient photovoltaic (PV) windows, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Their findings outline building design rules that can yield a structure with net-zero or even net-positive energy consumption. Buildings account for more than a third of the world’s energy consumption and almost as much of global carbon dioxide emissions. But by combining PV with high thermal performance window technologies, new buildings can become a critical tool ENER Y TRE DS Marc-Antoni Racing, Stony Brook, N.Y., licensed several energy storage technologies developed at the DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tenn. The components enable fast-charging, energy-dense batteries for electric/hybrid vehicles and grid storage—plus achieve a key DOE goal of reducing vehicle battery charging time to under 15 minutes. ornl.gov. BRIEF Wenxiang Chen is the first author of a new study that applies imaging techniques common in ceramics. Graphical abstract depicting the energy transmission of thermally e icient PV windows. Courtesy of One Earth (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2022.10.014. in combatting climate change, the researchers noted. Modern office buildings stand out for their looming glass facades, a counterpoint to the days when they were constructed of concrete and single-pane windows. The Equitable Building in New York, for example, has a window-to-wall ratio of 25%. By comparison, the city’s Bank of America Tower opened in 2016, 101 years later, with a ratio of 71%. The researchers considered buildings with a window-to-wall ratio of 95%—dubbed “highly glazed”—for most of their analysis to clearly illustrate the impact glazing has on building energy performance. Improvements in glazing technologies such as triplepane windows helped improve the energy efficiency of buildings but so far have not been widely adopted. nrel.gov.
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