Dresden 2026 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

FM: Fachverband Funktionsmaterialien

FM 5: Focus Session: Holistic structural and safety assessment of battery materials and cells

FM 5.8: Vortrag

Montag, 9. März 2026, 17:00–17:15, BEY/0E40

Grain-Boundary-Driven Activity Enabled by Grain Size Engineering in Iron-Air Batteries — •Adam Cohen Miles¹, Yujun Zhao¹, Yan Ma^1,2, Dierk Raabe¹, and Yug Joshi¹ — ¹Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials, Max Planck Str. 1, 40237 Düsseldorf — ²Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, Delft 2628 CD, the Netherlands

Iron-air batteries are gaining renewed attention as cost-effective candidates for long-duration energy storage. While research to date has focused on improving anode performance through surface area enhancement or chemical additives, the role of iron microstructure in dictating electrochemical behavior remains unexplored. Here, we systematically isolate and examine the effect of grain size on the electrochemical activity of high-purity iron anodes by eliminating confounding factors such as porosity, dopants, and additives. The results reveal a strong inverse correlation between grain size and electrochemical performance, with ultrafine-grained anodes exhibiting substantially higher current densities and diffusive contributions than coarser grained counterparts. This enhancement is attributed to the increased grain boundary density, which promotes charge transfer and mitigates surface passivation. These findings represent the first direct demonstration of grain-size-controlled electrochemical activity in iron-air systems and establish microstructural engineering as a powerful design lever for performance optimization.

Keywords: Iron-air; Grain Boundaries; Long Term Energy Storage; Batteries