The Aqueous Battery Consortium of Stanford, SLAC, and 13 others seeks to overcome the limitations of a battery using water as its electrolyte.

Charging lithium-ion batteries at high currents just before they leave the factory is 30 times faster and increases battery lifespans by 50%, according to a study at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center. 

Learn more about how materials chemist and SLAC Associate Scientist Molleigh Preefer uses the powerful X-rays of SLAC’s synchrotron to watch battery charging cycles and innovate new battery materials.

A materials chemist and SLAC associate scientist, Preefer is excited about the synergies being sparked at the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center. 

The SLAC/Stanford researcher is a leading materials scientist and entrepreneur whose research is paving the way for better batteries, cleaner power grids.

Seen in atomic detail, the seemingly smooth flow of ions through a battery’s electrolyte is a lot more complicated.

The team reduced the amount of expensive platinum group metals needed to make an effective cell and found a new way to test future fuel cell innovations.

With up to a million X-ray flashes per second, 8,000 times more than its predecessor, it transforms the ability of scientists to explore atomic-scale, ultrafast phenomena that are key to a broad range of applications, from quantum materials to clean...

Analyzing X-ray movies with computer vision reveals how nanoparticles in a lithium-ion battery electrode work.

Leora Dresselhaus-Marais, Claudio Emma,  Bernhard Mistlberger and Johanna Nelson Weker will pursue cutting-edge research into decarbonizing steel production, theoretical physics, generating more intense particle beams, and improving X-ray microscopes.

Batteries come in many shapes and sizes, but their materials can be hard to source. SLAC researchers are trying to build them with more abundant and ethical elements.