Courses & Seminars on Na-ion/Li-on batteries – Jean-Marie Tarascon

Event Information

Date :Every Monday from 3 February to 10 March 2025, with a lecture at 4pm followed by a seminar at 5pm.
Place :Guillaume Budé Amphitheatre - Marcelin Berthelot Site, Collège de France, Paris

Introduction

By Jean-Marie Tarascon, a renowned French chemist specialising in materials for energy, particularly batteries, and holder of the Chair of Solid State and Energy Chemistry at the Collège de France.

Batteries are always in the news, in an alternation of euphoria and gloom. Euphoria caused by the all-solid state battery, a subject I covered in my course last year. The gloom is due to the recent difficulties encountered by European gigafactories as a result of the slowdown in the electric vehicle market. Added to this are the difficulties encountered in meeting orders and competition from China. As highlighted last year, the rise of LiFePO4 and LiFe1-xMnxPO4 chemistries, of which China has a virtual monopoly, is intensifying, threatening European sovereignty. Less widely publicised, but just as crucial, Na-ion technology is positioned as a more environmentally-friendly alternative to Li-ion because of the abundance of sodium in nature. This technology is now on the roadmap of a number of companies, with many already marketing it (TIAMAT in France, CATL and HiNa in China, Natron in the United States). Na-ion, which competes with Li-ion in terms of power, has a shorter range. It is currently coveted for power applications, as a buffer for renewable energy, but also for the new generation of urban vehicles, for which a fast charge is preferred to a long range. But what is really behind this technology in terms of materials and electrolytes? What about its cost and safety? What about its potential for progress? Is an all-solid-state Na-ion version realistic? This course will attempt to answer all these questions.

Na-ion technology will first be reviewed in the current context of batteries. We will then describe the various sodium-ion chemistries based on positive electrodes using polyanionic compounds, lamellar oxides or Prussian blues. Although carbon is the negative electrode of choice for Na-ion technology, we will look at the possibilities offered by sodium alloys or conversion electrodes. Thirdly, we will look at the electrolyte, which can be liquid (organic or aqueous) or solid, leading us to non-aqueous, aqueous and all-solid Na-ion technologies. In this race towards more environmentally-friendly batteries, the state of research into K-ion technology will also be reviewed, as will the return to Fe-air technology, which is attracting renewed interest.

The lectures will be followed by seminars devoted to the contribution of AI to battery assembly (Alejandro FRANCO), the electrochemistry of Zn-MnO2 (Véronique BALLAND) and Ca/Mg-ion batteries (Rosa PALACIN), the study of interfaces using laboratory techniques (Ozlem SEL) or large instruments (Sandrine LYONNARD), and recycling issues (Cyril AYMONIER). An industry representative, Hervé BEUFFE, CEO of TIAMAT, will close this series of lectures.

Registration :

All courses and seminars are free of charge and open access, with no prior registration required.

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