A new microscope will watch batteries and catalysts as they work, capturing atomic-scale changes that have been invisible until now. Today’s best batteries and electrocatalysts are designed partly by guesswork. Their internal chemistry involves competing reactions, shifting atomic structures, and fleeting intermediate states that computer models cannot predict. Researchers can only infer what happens inside an operating device. This project builds a transmission electron microscope platform that images electrochemical processes in real time, under realistic operating conditions, at resolutions that current in-situ methods cannot reach. A graphene-based electrochemical cell inside the microscope will allow the team to watch nucleation, electrodeposition, bubble formation, and catalyst degradation as they happen. If successful, the platform will reveal exactly why certain battery materials fail or why catalyst surfaces lose activity. That knowledge could guide the rational design of longer-lasting batteries and more efficient catalysts for fuel cells or electrolysers—technologies that underpin energy storage, electric vehicles, and green hydrogen production. The work is fundamental science: it does not produce a commercial device, but it provides the direct observational evidence needed to move energy materials design from trial-and-error to informed engineering.
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This project will construct a new transmission electron microscope (TEM) platform for operando electrochemical imaging, designed to identify electrochemical processes at unprecedented spatial resolution while operating under application-relevant conditions. Better batteries and electrocatalysts are essential for realising a sustainable future. Yet the complexity of their electrochemistry - with intertwined dependence on side-reactions, valence evolution, structural changes, and more - cannot be predicted just by modelling. Peering inside an operating cell will reveal these processes directly, enabling the informed design of future energy materials. Resolving many of these critical aspects still reside beyond the resolution limits of current in-situ characterisation methods. The core objectives of AIDEChem are: (i) To develop a new graphene-enabled electrochemical cell that will grant a unique high-resolution TEM imaging and spectroscopy capability for probing electrochemistry in-situ. (ii) To reveal previously inaccessible processes occurring in candidate electrochemical systems, including batteries and electrocatalysts, at ground-breaking resolutions. The new platform will be used to expose the nanoscale dynamics that govern electrochemical nucleation of nanostructures, epitaxial electrodeposition, nanobubble deactivation of electrodes, and electrocatalyst evolution; electrochemistry that is largely inaccessible with current in-situ microscopy technology. With the new technical capability realised in this platform, AIDEChem will provide the insights that are mandatory for the informed design of effective electrochemical energy materials, optimally tailored for the desired application. Delivery of AIDEChem will be possible due to the PI's combination of research skills - encompassing in-situ TEM, nanoscale device fabrication, 2D materials, and electrochemistry - and the TEM, nanofabrication, and electrochemistry facilities at Warwick University.
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