In autumn 2019 TU Graz announced funding program for teaching and research cooperation with St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (Russia) in terms of strategic partnership agreement between universities. Grants aimed to support initial research activities and to exchange expertise of researchers at both universities.
Kirill Keller, the PhD student from LAMPSe, was awarded with the grant with a project “Functionalization of Laser-induced graphene by Atomic layer deposition for lithium-ion batteries“.
Since renewable energy sources are actively developed today, it is necessary to find a way to store this energy. The supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries are common in modern research work and provide big perspectives for application.
Lithium-ion batteries are of a great interest due to their high energy density and low self-discharge rate. Constantly increasing demands for high capacity, safe and reliable batteries stimulate the search and development of alternative materials for lithium-ion batteries, which is a big challenge in modern materials science.
Our group at the Institute of Solid State Physics has recently started the research of pyrolysis of commercial polymers. This technique is used for producing Laser-induced graphene (LIG), the material possessing unique physical properties.
The goal of the project is investigation of ALD processes on a complex surface of LIG that could open new applications including solid state lithium-ion batteries which could be used for powering of miniaturized, autonomous, wearable devices and sensors.
During the stay from January 28th to February 6th at St. Petersburg, Kirill worked with a group of Maxim Maximov at Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Materials and Transport. There several syntheses of thin layers of transition metal oxides on LIG were performed by atomic layer deposition The first results showed that modification of a graphene material is possible by ALD and it looks as a promising material for lithium-ion batteries electrodes with extended charging capacity.