Milestone for Battery Research Cooperation Between Germany and USA

Cooperation between the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in the field of battery research is further consolidated with the signing of the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI).

19 September 2023 – The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have further strengthened and deepened their cooperation by signing the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI). The two have already been working together within the US-German Cooperation on Energy Storage since 2019. Through the joint project work, fundamental knowledge is being created that is of crucial importance for the further development of the lithium metal battery, a high-energy storage technology.

Interfaces and Interphases

The successful collaboration of the participating working groups of the Helmholtz Institutes Münster (HI MS; IEK-12) and Ulm (HIU), Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), the Karlsruhe and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology (KIT, MIT), the Universities of Aachen (RWTH), Giessen (JLU), Munich (TUM), Münster (WWU), Stanford, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, Chicago, the national laboratories of Argonne (ANL), Oak Ridge (ORNL), Berkeley (LBNL), Pacific Northwest (PNNL), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) as well as the MEET Battery Research Center of the University of Münster are particularly focused on the research on interfaces and interphases in rechargeable lithium metal-based batteries.

"The interfaces and interphases between electrodes and electrolytes make a decisive contribution to the performance of batteries. The targeted development of electrolyte formulations and functional surface coatings therefore represent promising opportunities to significantly improve the performance of future energy storage devices," explains PD Dr Gunther Brunklaus, head of the "Electrolytes" department at Helmholtz Institute Münster and lead researcher in the DE-US collaborative project LISI-2. Prof. Dr Martin Winter as scientific director of the Helmholtz Institute Münster and director of the MEET Battery Research Center, and Prof. Dr Arnulf Latz as head of the department "Computational Electrochemistry" of the Institute for Technical Thermodynamics of the DLR and the HIU, respectively, coordinate the German side of the three funded collaborative projects LISI-2, LILLINT-2 and CATSE-2.

The overarching goal of the projects is to create a comprehensive understanding of possible interactions of the materials and to develop modelling and characterisation techniques that enable operando analyses in particular, i.e. investigations of the cells in operation.

Meeting Global Challenges Together

The DE-US battery research cooperation is in line with international efforts to advance the energy transition and electromobility in a resource-conscious manner. The competitiveness and sovereignty of both countries are also to be strengthened respectively. Important focal points are the training and promotion of doctoral students in an international context and through personal exchange.

Further information on the coordination activities of the Helmholtz Institute Münster can be found here.