Funding for ErwiN from Norwegia

NordForsk kick-off meeting NordForsk kick-off meeting at Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum. From left: Dr. Bjørn Pederson (RESI), Dr. Volodymyr Baran (SPODI), Dr. Michael Heere (ErwiN, MLZ & KIT), Dr. Daniel Sørensen (SDU), Prof. Dr. Dorthe Ravnsbæk (SDU), Dr. Michael Knapp (KIT), Dr. Samantha Zimnik (Nectar, MLZ & KIT). © FRM II / TUM

NordForsk kick-off meeting at Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum. From left: Dr. Bjørn Pederson (RESI), Dr. Volodymyr Baran (SPODI), Dr. Michael Heere (ErwiN, MLZ & KIT), Dr. Daniel Sørensen (SDU), Prof. Dr. Dorthe Ravnsbæk (SDU), Dr. Michael Knapp (KIT), Dr. Samantha Zimnik (Nectar, MLZ & KIT). © FRM II / TUM

The Norwegian Research Council granted 2 million Kroner for a Post-Doc position to design a sample holder for Li-ion coin cell batteries, which can be charged and discharged while measuring with neutrons.

The European Spallation Source facility is presently under construction in Lund, Sweden, and the NordForsk (Nordic Research) programme on neutron science aims to develop Nordic capacity and expertise in order to take advantage of the new opportunities ESS will present. In this respect a grant was awarded to Dr. Daniel Sørensen, who will start his new position at MLZ on the 1st of July 2018. As a chemist, he is part of the group of Assoc. Prof. Dorthe Ravnsbæk at University of Southern Denmark.

Both of them visited MLZ for a kick-off meeting of the various institutes and project members in April 2018. The NordForsk kick-off meeting was a great opportunity to bring all parties together from MLZ (TUM), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and SDU, to present their work, find synergies and with those possibilities for future collaborations.

Dr. Daniel Sørensen will mostly work on the design of an operando neutron powder diffraction sample holder for Li-ion coin-cell batteries and test his design ideas at the high resolution neutron powder diffractometer SPODI and in future at the new fast neutron powder diffractometer ErwiN (upgrade of RESI) at MLZ. Furthermore, he will utilize this to study Li-ion storage mechanisms in a series of novel cathode materials and bring expertise in synthesis methods from the University of Southern Denmark located in Odense, Denmark.

“This will enrich and complement the ErwiN project”, says Dr. Michael Heere (KIT), who is planning and constructing ErwiN. Just recently he and co-authors have published the outline of the new instrument in the Journal of Applied Crystallography.