27 June 2022

Associate Professor Alexey Glushenkov (BSGIP and the Research School of Chemistry) and colleagues from the Research School of Earth Sciences Professor Gregory Yaxley and Professor Andrew Berry received $180,000 from the ANU College of Science Research Strategic Programs funding for 2022 for a project looking at critical minerals at high pressures – novel compounds for storage batteries. The project will explore the synthesis of materials at high pressure and their application in batteries.

The experimental facilities at the ANU provide the means to investigate the synthesis of novel materials using the relatively unexplored variable of pressure (up to 23 GPa). Recently, these capabilities were tapped into to explore high pressure hydrogen-storage materials and synthesis of new Pt-Bi materials at 1.0 GPa, showing the potential to reveal exciting new data. The new project will use the unique breadth of high-pressure instrumentation at the Research School of Earth Sciences and their expertise in critical metals with battery development capabilities contributed by BSGIP researchers in the Research School of Chemistry.

This project demonstrates an exciting example of the cross-campus collaboration in a cutting edge area. The initiative is closely aligned with the “Resource technology and critical metals” National Manufacturing Priority in the Federal Governments “University Research Commercialisation Action Plan”. 

Find out more about the Program’s battery materials research.