Physics Department News
Warwick joins national push for ultra-low-cost, long-duration aluminium batteries
The University of Warwick is leading one of seven new Research Sprints in the Faraday Institution’s UltraStore Transformational Challenge, a national programme seeking ultra-low-cost battery technologies capable of supplying electricity to the grid for more than 100 hours.
Led by Dr Alex W. Robertson in the Department of Physics, and Dr Ashok Menon and Prof Louis Piper in WMG, the Warwick project will investigate manganese-oxide cathodes for aqueous aluminium-ion batteries. Manganese leaving the cathode during cycling is often assumed to be a cause of degradation, but emerging evidence suggests that reversible dissolution and redeposition may instead play an important role in storing charge. The team will combine in situ and operando structural measurements, including X-ray absorption spectroscopy at WMG’s X-ray research platform, with measurements of manganese in the electrolyte. This mechanism-led approach will distinguish harmful, irreversible material loss from potentially beneficial reversible cycling and identify the cathode architecture best suited to stable, extended low-power operation.
The findings will guide the design of cathodes, electrolytes, and low-cost additives, with the most promising approach validated at the pouch-cell level. Working alongside complementary projects at Imperial College London and the universities of Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton and UCL, Warwick will help establish a development route for safe, affordable aluminium-based energy storage.
UltraStore is supported by the Faraday Institution as part of UK Research and Innovation’s ULDES Challenge.