EXC 2154:  Post-Lithium Energy Storage (POLiS)

• Subject Area: Chemical Solid State and Surface Research ; Materials Science ; Physical Chemistry
• Term: since 2019
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390874152

Energiewende – the energy transition that forms a fundamental tenet of our global economy – faces challenges from limited material availability, extinction of European mining industries, geopolitical threats, and price fluctuations. This is particularly relevant for electrochemical energy storage (EES), a key technology for enabling the use of renewable energy. Alternative EES technologies are needed, which requires coordinated, fundamental research aiming for high-performance, safe, affordable and sustainable solutions. These must be based on diverse and abundant raw materials, enhancing energy security and sovereignty and ensuring a resilient and sustainable energy future. As a major initiative in post-Li EES, we have followed this path from the beginning. We built significant momentum and gained deep insights while working towards enabling EES beyond lithium. We now aim to leverage, pivot, and expand these learnings, and are going to scale and resolve the scientific issues that are currently slowing down progress. Our exceptional track record, infrastructure, and world-leading expertise in post-Li EES put us in the perfect position to do so. POLiS II features a comprehensive and interdisciplinary scientific programme centred in electrochemical materials science. “The path of the ion” as leitmotif highlights the quest for a deep understanding of charge transfer and transport, the key relevance of “ionics”, and the science of manufacturing cells with highly optimized paths for all charge carriers. All this will be done considering full-battery-cell performance as well as assessing sustainability over the whole life cycle – from which learnings are fed back into the further exploration of materials and cell concepts. POLiS will provide a world-wide unique source of information on post-Li EES, offering robust and curated data, also for advanced data science and machine learning-based predictive tools. By investigating various shuttle ions (Na, K, Mg, Ca, Al, Cl) we will derive chemical trends and guidelines for new cell concepts. Our research programme addresses key challenges along the “path of the ion” and on the full-cell level with the aim to enable post-Li battery cells that are “fit for transfer”. POLiS will enter the second funding period with the strong partners UUlm, KIT, and the newly added full partner JLU to fortify research on solid-state ionics and advanced interface analysis. The new POLiS Lab as shared facility and reference laboratory for post-Li EES will complement the POLiS Data Hub for data management, the POLiS Brain for data science and the POLiS Materials (and Cell) Acceleration Platform and will thus expand the powerful infrastructure and offer new room for collaboration. Transforming the successful Graduate School EES into the EES Academy will expand education and training to all career levels, fostering diversity, equity, inclusion, communication, and knowledge transfer.

• DFG Programme: Clusters of Excellence (ExStra)
• Applicant Institution: Universität Ulm
• Co-Applicant Institution: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen; Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
• Spokespersons: Professor Dr. Helmut Ehrenberg; Professorin Dr. Birgit Esser; Professor Dr. Jürgen Janek
• Participating Researchers: Dr. Montaha Anjass; Professor Dr. Anass Benayad, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Dominic Bresser; Professor Dr. Maximilian Fichtner; Professor Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Fleischer; Dr. Simon Fleischmann; Professor Dr. Axel Groß; Professorin Dr. Anja Henß; Professor Dr. Timo Jacob; Dr. Fabian Jeschull; Professorin Dr. Christine Kranz; Professorin Dr.-Ing. Ulrike Krewer; Professor Dr. Christian Kübel; Professor Dr. Arnulf Latz; Professorin Dr. Doreen Mollenhauer; Professorin Linda Nazar, Ph.D.; Professorin Dr. Britta Nestler; Professor Dr. Marcus Rohnke; Professor Dr. Bernd Smarsly; Professor Dr. Patrick Théato; Dr.-Ing. Marcel Weil; Zhirong Zhao-Karger, Ph.D.