Aluminium-chalcogen Batteries

Our group has worked to develop understanding in aluminium-chalcogen batteries, primarily through NMR characterisation. We have worked with both aluminium-sulfur, and aluminium-selenium systems and we strive to identify their common features and their distinct characteristics. We probe the electrochemical reaction products in these systems to attain an understanding of their electrochemical properties and reversibility.

In the sulfur system, we use ²⁷Al NMR to distinguish the solid and liquid reaction products and how they interact. We additionally highlight the different aluminium sulfide polymorphs present in commercially available powders and how that compares to electrochemically generated Al₂S₃. The paper we published in ACS Chemistry of Materials can be found at this link.

A similar phenomenon was studied for selenium, where we were additionally able to directly probe the selenium through ⁷⁷Se NMR. Through the study of the selenium electrode at various states of charge, we successfully identified the influence of long-range order on the electrochemical performance, as well as the local environments present.