The LIME Lab is a joint international laboratory with the University of Aix-Marseille, France and was created in 2015.
Sufficient clean and safe energy resources are a key requirement for the future of mankind. Efficient energy and conversion devices contribute to meet this objective. Most renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, or tide, are intermittent in nature and need suitable high performance energy storage devices, including rechargeable lithium batteries, to exploit their full potential. Old fashioned combustion engines with limited efficiency should be replaced by new generation fuel cells with hydrogen as zero-emission fuel that reach much higher efficiency. For the future hydrogen economy, the development of high quality water electrolysers is another important objective. In so-called “intelligent electricity grids”, instantaneous power shortage or excess can be mitigated by large scale energy storage technologies, such as redox flow batteries.
For all these electrochemical energy technologies, advanced materials must be developed that simultaneously guarantee:
- high performance
- high safety
- high durability
- inexpensive and environmentally friendly production
All these systems require an efficient separation of positive and negative electrode compartments by an ionic conducting and electron blocking solid electrolyte. In future technologies, solid electrolytes are preferred, because they allow miniaturisation and present a better long-time stability and safety than liquid electrolytes.
High performance solid polymer electrolytes, called “ionomers”, are there search topic of this international laboratory.