Dropping the carbon and alternating #Nickle : #Manganese ratio could enable long-life, low-cost renewable energy storage

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Nanthakumar Victor Emmanuel, P.Eng. COO, CVMR Corporation Leave a comment

This material—#Nickel-doped #Lanthanum #Strontium #Manganite (LSMN)—is a member of the perovskite family, a recently discovered group of electrochemically active materials that are also causing a stir as potential #SolarPanel materials. “The high intrinsic electrical conductivity of LSMN means that carbon is not needed as additive for conductivity enhancement,” Zong says.

By alternating the ratio of nickel to manganese in the material, Zong was able to tune the perovskite’s performance. The best-performing formulation, containing 10 per cent nickel, matched the electrocatalytic performance of palladium on carbon, the current benchmark electrocatalyst. Yet, without the carbon, the stability of the material was greatly enhanced. The team tested LSMN over 300 electrochemical cycles and saw negligible performance degradation.