UNI FOCUS: FUTURECAT PROJECT
UNI FOCUS: SHEFFIELD
2 2. Sheffi eld
www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com // January 2020 // 129
Drive for sustainability
The chemistry behind the batteries that
drive electric vehicles is comprised
of limited resources confi ned to certain
locations around the globe, but technology
is progressing to restrict this dependency.
The She eld university research is part of this
process of ensuring energy security and ethical
sourcing of materials.
“There are a number of possible approaches
that we will be examining to remove the
reliance on cobalt in future lithium-ion
cathode materials,” says Corr. “For example, for
currently applied layered cathodes, we will be
examining what earth abundant elements can
reproduce the performance eff ects of cobalt.
We will achieve this through a coordinated
computational and experimental design
approach. High capacity can also be achieved
through cation-plus-anion redox-activity and
here we will employ manganese-rich cathodes,
again reducing the need for cobalt. The key to
the success of a material will be a high capacity,
whilst at the same time providing structural
stability, and the team we have assembled has
the expertise to design high capacity materials
with targeted crystal structures.”
The FutureCat research program is agile
and integrated to harness the resources
aff orded by an interdisciplinary team. “Our
work starts at the atomic level,
choosing the elements and crystal
structures most likely to yield high performance. The
materials are synthesized and formulated into batteries
using bespoke processing methods targeted at producing
ideal nano and microstructures,” says Corr.
“Batteries are tested using standard protocols, but we’re
also developing new testing methods that probe the
stability of sensitive interfaces so that we can predict
problems long before a battery fails in cycling. The best
materials progress to scale-up, where we develop synthetic
and manufacturing strategies to produce commercial
quantities of cathode. Supported by multi-scale modelling,
a main objective of our work is to develop a theoretical
framework for screening materials and predicting
performance based on chemistry and structure. This
knowledge discovery represents a step-change for the
battery industry.”
Technical feasibility
The project is already well underway, performed by
appropriately skilled and experienced academics, and
taking place in a pre-existing materials and energy-storage
technology research environment. This kind of university
research is vital for an industry conscious of establishing
the technology needed to assuage lingering public anxieties
about range and performance, so accelerating public
University has been
awarded £11m
(US$14m) for its work
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