The three main components of a lithium-ion battery—anode, cathode, and electrolyte—must all be optimized to produce a safe, low-cost, and high-energy product. The cathode has traditionally been the most expensive piece; it stores energy in ordered crystal structures that are based on costly and rare metals, like cobalt. In contrast, manganese is inexpensive, earth abundant, and non-toxic, but substituting the disordered crystal structures of manganese for cobalt-based structures had long been thought to introduce an energy tradeoff. Now, researchers have delivered outstanding performance using two new manganese-based materials.
UC Berkeley College of Chemistry professors Jeffrey Long and Daniel Neumark have been announced as 2019 American Chemical Society (ACS) awardees for their pioneering chemical research. They will be honored at a ceremony at the spring ACS national meeting in Orlando, Florida, March 31–April 4, 2019.
Class of 1932 Endowed Professor of Chemistry, Richard Saykally, has been awarded a 2018 Helmholtz International Fellow Award for his research using X-ray spectroscopy to study the detailed chemistry of the global carbon cycle, characterizing the hydration structure and intermolecular interactions in aqueous CO2, carbonic acid, carbonate, bicarbonate, and the calcium and magnesium salts that ultimately form limestone.