The DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been chosen to lead an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) on polymer electrolytes for energy storage applications, including fuel cells and solid-state EV batteries.

“The EFRC program sponsors fundamental research to accelerate scientific breakthroughs needed to strengthen the US energy economy,” says ORNL. “Centers bring together multidisciplinary teams from universities, nonprofits, industry and national laboratories to tackle challenges across promising areas for future energy technologies.”

The new EFRC will receive $11.5 million in funding during a four-year period to work on a research project called Fast and Cooperative Ion Transport in Polymer-Based Electrolytes (FaCT).

“Our overall goal is to promote the design of novel polymers that enable ions, such as lithium or hydrogen, to move extremely fast,” says FaCT Director Valentino Cooper.

“FaCT takes a bottom-up approach, combining polymer synthesis, materials characterization, and computational modeling and simulation, to gain insights in enhancing polymers for battery and fuel cell applications,” says ORNL.

Source: ORNL