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Join us in the Faraday Institution FUSE2022 summer internship programme in batteries

Join us for an undergraduate summer internship with Faraday in the Chemical Imaging of Batteries.

Studying a STEM degree? Wondering what career to pursue? Interested in finding out more about the battery sector? Keen to spend time with a dynamic community of pioneering battery researchers seeking to find solutions to support a fully electric future?

We are offering an 8 week internship for undergraduate students to work on our battery related project – Chemical Imaging of Batteries.

In order to aid the transition to renewable energy and electrified transportation, it is vital for batteries to be able to provide higher energy densities, greater durability and increased lifetimes. To achieve these aims, researchers are focusing on an understanding of the physical and chemical mechanisms at play, applying advanced characterization techniques to help drive our understanding. Finden are developing novel chemical tomography characterization and data analysis techniques to enable the physicochemical structure of Li ion batteries to be studied. The internal chemistry can be directly observed inside intact batteries under operating conditions, providing unique insights into performance and degradation.

We are working with the Faraday Institutions Next Generation Cathode Materials Project, FutureCat at the University of Sheffield to understand how and why the novel cathode materials being developed there are better able to withstand prolonged cycling than current commercial materials.

We are seeking a highly motivated student to work with us in applying and benchmarking our novel methods (e.g. chemical segmentation algorithms, machine learning networks) to identifying and fitting experimental X-ray diffraction experimental data acquired on commercial Li ion batteries, and to apply these to the study of FutureCat’s novel cathode materials.

Supervisor: Dr Stephen Price
University: University of Sheffield & Finden Ltd
Location: Remote
Start date: The internship is a full-time role for 8 weeks [Flexible 1 June – 30 September 2022].

For more about our internship visit https://futurecat.ac.uk/faraday-undergraduate-summer-experience-fuse-2022-opportunities/

New workshop on Neutron Powder Diffraction on Catalytic Materials

Our Chief Scientific Officer Prof. Andrew Beale will be speaking at an afternoon workshop on the topic of Neutron Powder Diffraction on Catalytic Materials on 22 March at 13:30 GMT. The workshop will take place in Building R68, Room CR12, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, OX11 0QX.

Neutron diffraction is a powerful technique for determining the atomic and/or magnetic structure of a sample in the various kinetic states of matter. The technique is similar to X-ray diffraction but the different type of radiation gives complementary information. We cordially invite researchers with an interest in seeing how these techniques can potentially be exploited to deliver new insights into the structure and properties of catalytic materials to this workshop!

For more information and to register for free visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-on-neutron-powder-diffraction-on-catalytic-materials-tickets-292273998397

New position for a Machine Learning and Tomography Scientist

We invite applications for a Machine Learning and Tomography Scientist. The position is initially limited to 1 year. As the Machine Learning and Tomography Scientist, you will be responsible for developing algorithms and machine/deep learning models to handle, analyse and denoise X-ray CT, spectroscopy and diffraction/scattering data.

For more information and to apply visit – https://www.nature.com/naturecareers/job/machine-learning-and-tomography-scientist-finden-ltd-752936

Finden in new Faraday annual report

Finden were pleased to be mentioned in the Faraday Institution 2020/21 Annual report on batteries. The report covers how the organisation is:

  • Conducting ground-breaking research to improve battery performance
  • Accelerating research to commercial outcomes
  • Inspiring and training the next generation
  • Informing policy and engaging the public.

More information in the Faraday Institution annual report on pages 59 and 66. You can read the full report at https://www.faraday.ac.uk/2020-21-annual-report/

The CAROTS Startup Guide for scientists is out!

The last publication of the CAROTS project: The CAROTS Startup Guide has been published. This guide has been written within the CAROTS project with contribution from our Director Dr Simon Jacques and CSO Prof Andrew Beale to help future founders of Scientific Service Companies (SSCs). It is a tailored guide that will help scientists on their way to starting up the next Scientific Service Company in Europe. In this guide they will learn about 1) different kinds of business models, 2) the market they will operate within, 3) how to take their service to market and sell it, 4) future ideas about intellectual property, and 5) how they will fund their startup in the early days.

You will find the guide for download at https://www.carots.eu/sites/sites_custom/site_carots/content/e114136/e151844/CAROTSStartupGuide.pdf

μ-CT Investigation into the Impact of a Fuel-Borne Catalyst Additive on the Filtration Efficiency and Backpressure of Gasoline Particulate Filters

Finden, working with Infineum UK Ltd. and muVIS (Uni. Southampton), used micro-CT to quantify the beneficial effects of a fuel borne catalyst on the back pressure and filtration efficiency of a gasoline particulate filter tested under real world conditions.

Find the article at https://saemobilus.sae.org/content/04-15-02-0006/

Finden at the Big Science Summit

Our Director Simon Jacques discussed how best to boost the economic impact of Europe’s research facilities along with delegates at the recent Big Science Summit in Malmö, Sweden, read the article on the event by Joe McEntee in Physics World at https://physicsworld.com/a/building-bridges-between-big-science-and-industry/

Faraday Conference – ECR Themes

16 November 2021
Session: Advanced X-ray and Neutron techniques

Dr Stephen Price is an Industrial Research Fellow with the University of Sheffield, and will be presenting at the ECR day of the Faraday Institution Conference 2021. He will present an overview of the advanced X-ray and analytical techniques Finden has been developing, and how these can be applied to better understand the structural origin of the improved electrochemical performance of the novel cathode materials being developed by the FutureCat project (https://futurecat.ac.uk/), led by Professor Serena Cussen.

This session focuses on the increasingly popular application of X-ray and neutron-based techniques to analyse, image and characterise batteries and their materials. These include both central-facility-based research and analysis that can be performed in university labs to improve the performance and safety of battery technology.

For more information visit https://faradayconference.org.uk/programme/ecr-themes/

Finalists in xTech Global AI Challenge

xtech Global Challenge FInalist TrophyWe were delighted to be among the finalists of the xTech Global AI Challenge sponsored by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM), U.S. Air Force AFWERX, U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research-Global and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology.

Our Research Scientist Dr Naomi Omori attended the finalist pitch event, held at Imperial College London Innovation Hub on September 9-10, 2021. The finalists pitched their proposed solutions to a panel of AI experts from DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Air Force AI/ML Accelerator, Naval Information Warfare Center – Pacific (NIWC), DOD Joint AI Center (JAIC), UK Defense Science and Technology Lab (DSTL), and French Defence Innovation Agency (DIA).

Naomi said of the experience, “Being selected as a finalist and representing Finden was a great opportunity. Not only did we get the chance to pitch twice to a lot of useful contacts in the UK and US defence sector, we have also been granted access to an accelerator program that will help Finden to gain traction in this new field. Although we didn’t win any of the cash prizes, our technology pitch was very well received by many of the people I interacted with and it was great to see how the technologies Finden develops can be of interest to sectors beyond what they were originally developed for. I am looking forward to learning more through the xTech accelerator and disseminating useful information to the rest of the Finden team.”

Read more about the competition at https://www.army.mil/article/250419

Latest work on diffraction tomography of a commercially-available cylindrical NMC liion battery

We are excited to share with you our work on a commercially-available cylindrical NMC li-ion battery using XRD-CT. The paper, entitled “Cycling Rate-Induced Spatially-Resolved Heterogeneities in Commercial Cylindrical Li-Ion Batteries, was published as open access in Small Methods: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smtd.202100512. The work was led by our R&D Lead Scientist Dr Antony Vamvakeros and Dr Dorota Matras (Faraday Institution/Diamond Light Source) and was performed in collaboration with DESY, UCL Chemistry and SciML.

Synchrotron high-energy X-ray diffraction computed tomography has been employed to investigate, for the first time, commercial cylindrical Li-ion batteries electrochemically cycled over the two cycling rates of C/2 and C/20. This technique yields maps of the crystalline components and chemical species as a cross-section of the cell with high spatiotemporal resolution (550 × 550 images with 20 × 20 × 3 µm3 voxel size in ca. 1 h). The recently developed Direct Least-Squares Reconstruction algorithm is used to overcome the well-known parallax problem and led to accurate lattice parameter maps for the device cathode. Chemical heterogeneities are revealed at both electrodes and are attributed to uneven Li and current distributions in the cells. It is shown that this technique has the potential to become an invaluable diagnostic tool for real-world commercial batteries and for their characterization under operating conditions, leading to unique insights into “real” battery degradation mechanisms as they occur.

Read the full paper at https://doi.org/10.1002/smtd.202100512