The Royce@Cambridge Battery Suite will provide equipment for academic and commercial researchers to manufacture and process battery materials. This will bridge the gap between materials innovation and industrial collaboration. This comprehensive suite will accommodate a variety of materials and overcome difficult processing operations, including microwave manufacture, digestion, separation, drying, purifying, mixing, and washing.
To formally open the suite, on 31 October 2023, there will be a Battery Symposium. Join us at the event and book your place here.
Materials research for energy storage is a key component of the ‘Advanced Materials for a Sustainable Society’ vision of the Henry Royce Institute. To support the development of energy technologies that are safer, more efficient, and long lasting, we are integrating materials and accelerating their transition from early-stage discovery to impact.
The suite will allow researchers to investigate scalability of their materials and whether they can be safely processed. This will provide a new capability to the energy materials community.
If your research interests require use of the battery suite or you have any questions on the suites capabilities and would like to discuss your experimental needs, contact technical lead Dr Peter Knight (pjkk1@cam.ac.uk) in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy
Manufacturing, Digestion, Purification
Equipment: Milestone flexiWAVE microwave synthesis system and Analytix, Rotary evaporator
Description: microwave reactor for large capacity synthesis and digestion
Classic glassware – 500mL, 1 bar
High-pressure – 15 x 100mL vessels, 100 bar
Solid-phase – 500ml, 15mba
230oC evaporator, 20-300RPM, 5L capacity, vacuum controller and pump
Separation
Equipment: Beckman, Avanti JXN-26 centrifuge
Description: High-throughput sample processing
Centrifuge - Maximum capacity of 6.0L, 26,000 RPM, 82,000 x g
Rotor 1 - JA25.50 fixed angle, 8 x 50mL, 25,000 RPM, 75,600 x g
Rotor 2 - JLA-8.1000 fixed angle, 6 x 1000mL, 8,000 RPM, 15,970 x g
Mixing
Equipment: Intertronics, Thinky ARV-501
Description: Plantetary centrifugal slurry mixer
Maximum capacity 700g
Standard container 500mL resin
PU-501 built-in vacuum pump unit
Stirring and Drying
Equipment: IKA, Agitator and BUCHI Lyovapor L-200
Description: Large-volume shear mixing and freeze drying
T 50 digital ULTRA-TURRAX, 0.25-30L, 600-10,000 RPM
Mobile trolley, vacuum pump Edwards nXDS6iC, drying chamber manifold, -55°C, 6 kg