Materials scientist Christian Prehal has been awarded a 2.4 million euro Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The promising young scientist will work at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg on the development of an ecologically compatible “super battery” based on metal and sulphur.

Christian Prehal (born in 1988 in Radstadt, Salzburg) studied Materials Science at the University of Leoben, where he completed his doctorate in 2017 in the field of Material Physics and Electrochemistry. In the same year, Prehal received the  Christian Doppler Prize from the Salzburg state government. After a two-year postdoctoral stay at TU Graz, Prehal joined ETH Zurich as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow, where he has since been researching sustainable battery technologies such as lithium-sulphur batteries. The focus is on developing methods to better understand the physical-chemical processes in battery materials.

Nicola Hüsing, Vice Rector for Research at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, emphasises: ” This highly remunerated Starting Grant has been awarded to Christian Prehal, an exceptional researcher, to whom I would like to extend my warmest congratulations. His research could provide a quantum leap in the development of environmentally friendly batteries, a research achievement that will be very useful to society.” The research will be carried out at the Department of Chemistry and Physics of Materials at the PLUS, directed by Professor Oliver Diwald.

Batteries are one of the key technologies for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. We are currently witnessing a revolution in the fields of mobility and energy production. Future batteries must become more sustainable, cost-effective and powerful both for use in electromobility and for the stationary storage of renewable energy. “Metal-sulphur batteries could be groundbreaking”, emphasises Christian Prehal. “We can use lithum, sodium or magnesium as the metal. In addition to the low cost and sustainability of sulphur as a storage material, this type of battery could also store enormous amounts of energy.” The most important prerequisite for realising this project, however, is to have a fundamental understanding of processes on the nanometre scale (one millionth of a millimetre). Only then can this new and promising battery technology be put into practice, says Prehal.

This is precisely the focus of the ERC Starting Grant project. Christian Prehal and his team want to identify the mechanisms of phase transformation in metal-sulphur batteries and derive more efficient ways of converting sulphur. “The core of our work is the development of new experimental methods and the use of modern data science methods, such as machine learning. In the ERC project, we combine time-resolved X-ray scattering and cryo-electron microscopy with machine-learning supported stochastic modelling. This allows us to follow the very complex structure formation on the nanometre scale directly, during charging and discharging,” says Prehal. The design principles derived from this will eventually be implemented in prototypes with high storage density and long service life and without critical raw materials such as nickel and cobalt.

ERC Starting Grants offer young scientists who are still at the beginning of their careers the opportunity to establish themselves as excellent researchers through independent projects. The funds are made available for a period of five years. A total of 17 funding awards with a sum of 28.3 million euros went to Austria, placing the country in eighth place in Europe. A list of all award winners, statistics on the performance of individual countries and the ERC press release are available on the ERC website:  European Research Council awards €636m in grants to emerging science talent across Europe | ERC (europa.eu)

Information:

Project name: Systems Materials Engineering for High-Rate Solid-Sate Conversion in Metal-Sulfur Batteries (SOLIDCON)
Project leader: Dr. Christian Prehal, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS)
Project duration: 5 years

Photo credit: University of Salzburg

Contact:

Dr. Christian Prehal can be reached via e-mail, but is currently in the USA and will answer requests as soon as possible: