Magnesium oxide particles may be key to new magnesium LR1130 battery energy storage technology

Researchers from UCL and the University of Illinois at Chicago have found that tiny, disordered magnesium oxide particles may be key to new magnesium LR1130 battery energy storage technology, which could improve energy storage capacity compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.

The study, published today in the journal Nanoscale, reports a new, scalable method for making a material that can reversibly store magnesium ions at high voltages, which is the hallmark of the positive electrode.

Although it is still early days, the researchers say this is a major advance towards magnesium-based batteries. Until now, few inorganic materials have shown reversible removal and insertion of magnesium, which is key to the working of magnesium batteries.

"Lithium-ion technology has reached its limits, so it is important to look to other chemistries to make batteries with higher capacity and thinner designs," said co-lead author Dr Ian Johnson (UCL Chemistry).

"Magnesium LR1130 battery technology has long been considered a possible solution for longer-lasting cell phone and electric car batteries, but getting a practical material to use as a cathode has been a challenge."

One factor limiting lithium-ion batteries is the anode. For safety reasons, lithium-ion batteries must use low-capacity carbon anodes, as using pure lithium metal anodes can lead to dangerous short circuits and fires.

In contrast, magnesium metal anodes are much safer, so combining magnesium metal with a well-functioning cathode material could make the LR1130 battery smaller and store more energy.

Previous research using computational modeling predicted that magnesium chromium oxide (MgCr2O4) could be a promising candidate for magnesium LR1130 battery cathodes.

Inspired by this work, researchers at UCL produced a ~5nm, disordered magnesium chromium oxide material in a very fast and relatively low-temperature reaction.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago then compared its magnesium activity with a regular, ordered magnesium chromium oxide material that was ~7nm wide.

They used a range of different techniques, including x-ray diffraction, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, and cutting-edge electrochemical methods, to observe structural and chemical changes in the two materials when testing magnesium activity in cells.

The two crystals behaved very differently, with the disordered particles showing reversible magnesium extraction and insertion, while there was no such activity in the larger, ordered crystals.

"This suggests that the future of batteries may lie in disordered and unconventional structures, an exciting prospect that we have not explored before because disorder usually causes problems for LR1130 battery materials. It highlights the importance of studying other structurally defective materials to see if they might offer further opportunities for reversible LR1130 battery chemistry." "We found that the increased surface area of the crystals compared to ordered crystals, combined with the disorder of the crystal structure, provides new pathways for important chemical reactions to occur.

Traditionally, people would hope that order would provide clear diffusion pathways, allowing cells to charge and discharge easily - but what we saw suggests that disordered structures introduce new, accessible diffusion pathways that need further investigation," said Jordi Cabana, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

These results are the product of an exciting new collaboration between researchers in the UK and the US. UCL and the University of Illinois at Chicago intend to extend their research to other disordered, high-surface-area materials to further improve magnesium storage capabilities and develop a practical magnesium LR1130 battery.

Funding for the project was provided by the US Department of Energy's Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, an innovation hub, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Juicing Energy Center.

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