Category Archives: News

The European projects HarveStore, EpiStore, HyP3D and 24/7 ZEN announce the 4th edition of the “The Power of Interfaces” workshop, which will take place on 3rd – 5th April 2024.

Following the last successful meeting, where we hosted more than 80 participants, the workshop will be held in-person at the Caixa Forum of Palma de Mallorca (Spain), where we will discuss the latest advances in:

New materials for energy;
Solid-state devices for energy storage and conversion;
Advanced manufacturing;
Advanced characterization techniques;
Modelling;
Micro and nanotechnologies for energy devices.
The workshop will comprise of invited, keynote, contributed talks and posters. The event will be preceded by an international spring school covering aspects from fundamentals of materials to devices and systems. The spring school will take place on April the 3rd in the same venue and will be co-organized by EpiStore, HarveStore, HyP3D and 24/7 ZEN.

For further info: link.

The Nanoionics and Fuel Cells group at IREC is looking for a PhD student for an exciting new project on a novel battery technology based on thin films! Check it out: link.

Researchers at CNRS, in collaboration with IREC, have developed a new technique for probing oxygen kinetics in-situ. The techinque is based on tracking the changes of isotope concentration in a material by Raman. The proof of concept and strengths of isotope exchange Raman spectroscopy (IERS) is demonstrated by studying the oxygen isotope back-exchange in gadolinium-doped ceria (CGO) thin films. Resulting oxygen self-diffusion and surface exchange coefficients are compared to conventional time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) characterization and literature values, showing good agreement, while at the same time providing additional insight, challenging established assumptions. IERS captivates through its rapidity, simple setup, non-destructive nature, cost effectiveness, and versatile fields of application and thus can readily be integrated as new standard tool for in situ and operando characterization in many laboratories worldwide. The applicability of this method is expected to consolidate the understanding of elementary physicochemical processes and impact various emerging fields including solid oxide cells, battery research, and beyond. Link to publication: here.

Project partners from IREC have partecipated in the “Festa de la Ciencia” 2023 in Barcelona. A great outreach event to explain our activities and to introduce people to the power of harvesting heat and light! A very crowded event co-organized with another EU project “EpiStore”, as you can see from the gallery pictures.

The European Material Research Society sprng meeting will take place from may 29th to June 2nd in Strasbourg, France. The project is sponsor and contributor of Symposium A “Solid State Ionics: bulk, interfaces and integration in devices”. Check the full program: link.

Project partners at IREC and CNRS have participated in a new book, “Nanoengineered materials for solid oxide cells” in the IOP ebook series. The volume focuses on the fundamental research and progress achieved in utilizing nanostructured materials to boost the properties and performance of solid oxide cell devices. Link to publication: here.

The “Power of Interfaces 2022” meeting (PoI22) has taken place on October 5th-7th in Palma, Mallorca. It hosted three related events: the Harvestore and Epistore projects meetings, a school and the workshop, with 83 participants from 11 different institutions.

This is the third edition of the workshop, being the first one in 2020 at the Royal Society in London, and the second one in 2021 online.

The School covered aspects of fundamentals of oxide chemistry, ion transport, electrochemical devices and advanced characterization techniques. The participants had the opportunity to learn from exceptional lecturers: Ainara Aguadero, Stephen Skinner, Louis De Taeye, Juergen Fleig, Miguel Laguna, John Kilner and Dino Klotz.

On the 6th and 7th of October, the PoI22 workshop has been celebrated. It included seven different sessions: Advanced techniques, Devices, New Materials, Interfaces and surfaces, Modelling and Protonics. Outstanding keynotes have been presented, in addition to a series of invited and contributed talks. A poster session took place the 6th in the afternoon. At the end of the event the “Early career best poster” and “Early career bet oral presentation” prizes were awarded.

Beside the interesting scientific presentations, during the PoI22 event there was also time for informal networking. The welcome reception took place at a micro-brewing were participant could taste local craft beer and food. Invited speakers and project leaders were invited to a Gala dinner at the Xalest restaurant.

Visit our gallery section for photos of the event!

A novel rechargeable battery based on oxygen ions has been developed by project partners at TU Vienna. This technology is capable of working at intermediate temperatures with high storage capacity. It can be crafted without the need for rare elements and it is made of non-combustible materials, becoming therefore an interesting alternative to Li-ion batteries for long-term storage and for application in hazardous environments. The new battery idea has already been patented by TU Vienna and IREC. Publication: link.

IREC researchers, together with Imperial College, Colorado School of Mines and the laboratory of Electron Nanoscopies at the University of Barcelona, have developed a new tool for directly observing mass transport highways in nanomaterials. The method is based on atom probe tomography, which offers a 3D reconstruction of atomic positions with high resolution, and can be applied to a number of energy materials for devices such as fuel cells and batteries. The paper has been recently published by Wiley Advanced Materials: link. Check it out!

A new Nature Communications paper entitled “A high-entropy manganite in an ordered nanocomposite for long-term application in solid oxide cells” is released today, May the 11^th, 2021. The research has been led by IREC. The paper is a collaborative effort between IREC, University of Cambridge (UK), Colorado School of Mines (USA), Coventry University (UK), ICN2-CSIC-BIST (Spain), Purdue University (USA) and Imperial College London (UK).

The communication reports on the development of a novel class of functional materials with enhanced electrochemical properties based on nano-engineered composite oxides.

The researchers realized vertically aligned nanocomposites of an ionic and an electronic conductor with straight applicability as functional layers in solid oxide cells. The ordered structured is characterized by a coherent, dense array of vertical interfaces at the nm-scale. The synergy between the two materials results in high electrochemically activity and superior thermal stability. The authors use a combination of state-of-the-art and novel techniques including physical vapour deposition, atom-probe tomography combined with oxygen isotopic exchange, density functional theory calculations, to disclose the exciting properties of the material and to highlight the relevance of local disorder and long-range arrangements for functional oxides nano-engineering.

The Nature Communications paper can be downloaded from this link.