| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Novel Trends in Synchrotron and FEL-Based Analysis Focus Topic | Monday Sessions |
| Session SA-MoA |
| Session: | Synchrotron Studies of Processes in Energy Conversion, Electronic Devices and Other Materials II |
| Presenter: | Trevor Willey, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| Authors: | J.R.I. Lee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M. Bagge-Hansen, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory B. Wood, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T. Ogitsu, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory A. Wittstock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M. Worsley, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T.M. Willey, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M. Merrill, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory D. Prendergast, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory I.C. Tran, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory M. Biener, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory T. Baumann, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory J. Biener, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory J.-H. Guo, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory T.W. van Buuren, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Carbon aerogels (CAs) are a class of nanostructured, porous materials that have demonstrated applications in electrical energy storage (EES) due to their very high surface area, chemical and electrochemical stability, and relatively low cost. Tailoring these materials towards improved ESS performance can be significantly enhanced by a better understanding of nanostructured materials in aqueous environments under various potential gradients; therefore, we have pursued advanced in situ characterization techniques capable of probing the electronic structure and bonding of these electrode materials during charge-discharge cycling. We report the successful development of a cell for in situ soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) studies of EES materials and the application of this cell to the investigation of CA supercapacitors. Our XAS measurements, combined with complementary ab initio modeling, reveal profound changes in the structure and bonding of the CAs in operando, which will be discussed in terms of their macroscopic physical properties. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.