Argonne’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research renewed under 5-year, $120 mln plan
Argonne National Lab’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) is being renewed for another five years by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under a $120 million plan that will fuel advanced battery studies.
The JCESR has been at work for five years already, and in that time has made a number of technological advances. These have included things like the creation of a new class of membranes for flow batteries and the development of computational tools that screen more than 24,000 potential electrolyte and electrode compounds for new battery concepts. Such findings have been published in more than 380 peer-reviewed publications and led to more than 100 inventions engaged in various levels of the patent process.
“Improvements in battery performance are paramount to the future of both transportation and the electric grid,” Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar said. “JCESR is one of our most important centers of discovery and innovation for electrical energy storage and will be critical in laying the scientific groundwork for the next generation of battery technology.”
That next generation will include focuses like new battery materials and the creation of multivalent battery designs able to reach higher energy capacity than modern lithium-ion batteries. Researching these matters will be a team assembled from over a dozen labs and academic institutions from across the country.
