A team of scientists based at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ) has taken an important step toward developing safer and more efficient batteries. Their research reveals how sodium ions diffuse and migrate through a promising class of solid materials known as NASICONs. The findings, published in the journal Materials Chemistry A, could support the future development of sodium-based solid-state batteries for applications ranging from electric vehicles to grid-scale energy storage.

MLZ physicist Dr Leonie Heinze has been awarded the Heinrich Büssing Prize by the Braunschweig University Association. The prize, worth €10,000, recognises her outstanding doctoral thesis on frustrated magnetic materials – a topic that is attracting great interest due to the unusual magnetic states that occur in solid-state physics.

Water purification and desalination based on reverse osmosis is widely applied nowadays. The core of the technology is a special membrane. The microscopic pore system of such membranes needs to stay functional over long periods of operation. To analyse the pore structure during operation, neutrons – with their penetration of complex materials – are perfectly suited.