Giorgia Greco seminar
Sergio Brutti is pleased to invite to the seminar:
REALSEI: opeRando chEmical spAce- and time-resoLved quantification of Solid Electrolyte Interphase in hard carbon anode for sustainable sodium-ion batteries
Giorgia Greco, Sapienza Università di Roma
The seminar will be held in Parravano hall, first floor - S. Cannizzaro building CU014, on Thursday 21 September at 4 pm.
Abstract
The goal of REALSEI is to visualize for the first time in real-time the Solid Electrolyte Interphase formation at the hard-carbon (HC) anode in a Na-ion battery (NIB). Local electrochemical processes occurring at the solid-liquid interface of Na-ion batteries are currently largely unexplored. To keep global warming around 2.7°C by 2100, the installed global grid energy storage capacity needs to be tripled by 2050. A technological breakthrough is required to meet this challenge: we need a low cost and sustainable alternative to Li-ion batteries. Thanks to recent advances, the so-called ‘beyond-lithium’ batteries (BLB) such as K+ and Na+ based systems could be an everyday reality. Bio-waste mesoporous hard carbon (BHC) is one of the most promising anode materials as a universal ion host for BLBs. The use of BHC as a low-cost and recycled solution in BLBs might provide the breakthrough required and give rise to the next generation of batteries. However, uncontrolled SEI formation limits the large-scale application of BHC in BLBs, in particular for Na-ion batteries (NIBs), the most mature and promising. For NIBs, the SEI is still an unresolved issue that limits its long-term stability. REALSEI established a comprehensive operando time- and space- resolved characterization methodology to transit from bulk (transmission mode) to surface analytical characterization (grazing incidence mode) based on lab and synchrotron high-resolution X-ray techniques which resulted for the first time in a comprehensive visualization and quantification of the species forming the SEI in real-time on HC. REALSEI will apply principles of physics and electrochemistry and its results have substantial scientific, technological, and societal impact.
Giorgia Greco 
I graduated in Physics in 2006 at La Sapienza, then obtained the PhD in Physics in 2010 at the University of Camerino. My research interests goes from basic physics to electrochemistry and the characterization of applied energy materials. During my PhD I gained experience in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) not only in experimental setups, such as in situ XAS measurements on a nanocatalyst in a real proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), but also in data analysis, statistical simulations and data interpretation. After the PhD I improved my experience in electrochemistry working at ZSW (Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, Ulm, Germany) and at the Chemistry Department of University of Rome La Sapienza as a post-doc working on the subject of lithium-ion batteries. Lately I have approached the topic of time-resolved spectroscopy because I was interested in the study of the electronic dynamics of nanocatalysts. For this reason I got a postdoc position on instrumentation development in Roma Tre University.
In recent years, from 2016 to 2020, I have held a position as a beamline scientist at BESSYII, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin at the ASAXS beamline. During this period I developed a set-up to obtain operando measurements combining Small Angle Scattering (SAXS) and XAS techniques. My current position is Marie Curie fellow at La Sapienza, Department of Chemistry as PI of the REALSEI project (opeRando chEmical space- and time-resoLved quantification of Solid Electrolyte Interphase in hard carbon anode for sustainable sodium ion batteries).