Four Scientific Approaches

JCESR aims to go beyond today’s best Li-ion systems to provide five times the energy storage at one-fifth the cost within five years. Meeting this goal will require the discovery of new energy storage chemistries through an atomic-level understanding of energy storage phenomena and the development of universal design rules for battery performance.

JCESR will speed innovation by applying fundamental scientific advances of the last decade to battery R&D and uniting discovery science, materials design, battery system design, and advanced prototyping in a single highly interactive process. This approach integrates four key thrusts to address priority research challenges:

1. Electrochemical Storage Concepts focuses on three electricity storage concepts that are broader and more inclusive than the specific battery technologies now being pursued by the battery community:

• Multivalent Intercalation focuses on working ions, such as magnesium or yttrium, that carry twice or triple the charge of lithium and have the potential to store two or three times as much energy.
• Chemical Transformation is based on using the chemical reaction of the working ion to store many times the energy of today’s lithium-ion batteries.
• Non-aqueous Redox Flow is based on reversibly — changing the charge state of ions held in solution in large storage tanks; the very high capacity of this approach is well-suited to the needs of the grid.

2. Crosscutting Science employs forefront basic research techniques developed in the last decade to make new materials and characterize their performance at the atomic level for the three energy storage concepts.
3. Systems Analysis and Translation designs virtual batteries on the computer, projects their performance, identifies shortcomings, and communicates results to the Science and Concept teams.

4. Cell Design and Prototyping delivers pre-commercial prototypes for grid and transportation applications.