About the Seminar:

Battery development is a trial-and-error process to develop more efficient energy storage. This is due to many different factors contributing to suitable electrolyte solutions that are not well understood at a molecular level. Ion transportation is the main role of an electrolyte solution, and as a scientific community, we lack experimental evidence to analyze the different modes of ion transport and the timescales they occur. Structural and vehicular ion transportation are two proposed mechanisms with both advantages and disadvantages. The paper I will focus on (Dereka et al., JACS, 144, (19), 2022) uses different techniques to analyze each mode’s contribution to ion transport. I will talk about two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy (2D IR) as it is an experimental technique to reveal the solvation structure and dynamics of many different systems. The issues arise with this technique as with many systems it is impossible to distinguish between vibrational energy transfer and chemical exchange. This seminar will highlight this paper’s proposed method of distinguishing these events using isotope labeling. This method is important to accurately indicate the different modes’ contribution to ion transportation in these electrolyte solutions utilizing this technique.