New study takes close look at energy storage

Researchers from Giessen and Münster publish detailed analysis of prospects for the development of solid-state batteries / Review in Nature Energy. JLU doctoral candidate Laura Goodwin with a solid-state cell on a laboratory scale. JLU/Rolf K. Wegst Research into electrochemical energy storage devices and their development are among those fields of material sciences in which most work is being done worldwide. The rapidly growing need for high-performance batteries for a large number of applications has led to an increasing interest in achievable charging capacities and speeds. Equally, attention is being focused more strongly on the lifetimes, safety and availability of material resources, as well as on carbon footprints. It is against this background that chemists Prof. Jürgen Janek from Justus Liebig University Giessen and Prof. Wolfgang Zeier from the University of Münster and Helmholtz Institute Münster of Forschungszentrum Jülich, took a close look at the developments of the last ten years in the field of solid-state batteries. For this purpose, the researchers analysed the current state of the technology, critically considering the challenges and the unresolved issues which need to be dealt with to make solid-state batteries competitive.