RESEARCH

Chemical energy conversion/storage using electrochemical devices such as fuel cells and batteries will become increasingly important for future sustainable societies. Ion conductive materials are used as electrodes or solid electrolytes, and are key for determining the performance of these devices. Therefore, much better understanding characteristics of existing electrodes/electrolytes materials such as crystal structure, thermal stability and their reaction mechanism is key for achieving enhancement of battery performances. On the other hand, finding novel ion conduction phenomena through synthesis of a new class of substances leads to a creation of new battery systems. Our group focuses mainly on two research topics; (i) Control of an electrode/electrolyte interface in lithium secondary batteries for enhancement of battery performance (ii) Synthesis of hydride ion (H–) conductive and development of a novel battery system utilizing the H– conduction phenomenon and H–/H2 redox reaction.

Figure 1. Crystal structure of H– conductor La2-x-ySrx+yLiH1-x+yO3-y. This material system has wide composition range (0 ≤ x ≤ 1, 0 ≤ y ≤ 2), and is equipped with flexible anion sublattices composed of H– and O2–, which are capable of accepting various atomic arrangements and vacancies.