Material Degradation and Sustainability

Applied materials science supporting sustainable energy systems

Quick facts

  • Understanding how materials evolve over time and interact with the environment is critical to developing robust, reliable, and sustainable energy technologies and storage systems.
  • Our research focuses on developing new capabilities to control material degradation, improve material recycling, and accelerate material discovery.
  • We are exploring ways to make better use of scarce, critical materials and decrease our dependency on them.
LLNL researchers explore ways to improve hydrogen production technologies. One such method uses oxynitride layers as protective catalytic coatings for hydrogen evolution. This illustration shows hydrogen gas bubbles evolving from water at a thin layer of gallium oxynitride formed on gallium nitride surfaces. The chemical transformation of gallium nitride into gallium oxynitride leads to sustained operation and enhanced catalytic activity.

Preserving material performance under real-world conditions is one of the most significant challenges for energy technologies, especially as the material is reused. For example, chemical/electrochemical degradation is a key issue to consider when selecting materials for electrical energy storage, hydrogen storage, wind turbines, and energy conversion catalysts. Likewise, preventing metal oxidation and corrosion is critical for maintaining a reliable and robust energy delivery infrastructure.

LLNL has a long history of excellence in materials science research, making it an ideal place to address these challenges for emerging energy applications. Materials science experts at LLNL take a multidisciplinary approach to studying complex degradation processes and analyzing how a material performs at scale in relevant conditions over its service lifetime. They leverage LLNL’s supercomputers, machine-learning tools, and experimental characterization to:

  • Pinpoint key factors that initiate corrosion and other failure modes
  • Predict how the material’s structure and composition, as well as processing techniques, affect how it ages
  • Select and develop sustainable materials for use in energy applications
  • Identify better strategies to use and recycle critical materials

Research focus areas

LEAF researchers apply their unique expertise in three main focus areas:

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Cross-cutting research

Degradation science underpins research across each of our focus areas. Understanding how materials perform over time is a critical component of developing sustainable and affordable carbon management technologies, energy storage systems, and hydrogen production and storage solutions.