Toward Structural, Chemical, and Electrochemical Analyses of Solid-State Batteries Using Correlative Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Imaging.

The global transition from fossil fuels to green energy underpins the need for efficient and reliable energy storage systems. Advanced analysis and characterization of battery materials is not only important to understand fundamental battery properties but also crucial for their continued development. A deep understanding of these systems is often difficult to obtain through only pre- and/or post-mortem analyses, with the full complexity of a battery being hidden in its operational state.

One-pot surfactant-free modulation of size and functional group distribution in thermoresponsive microgels.

Control over the size and functional group distribution of soft responsive hydrogel particles is essential for applications such as drug delivery, catalysis and chemical sensing. Traditionally, targeted functional group distributions are achieved with semi-batch techniques which require specialized equipment, while the preparation of size-tailored particles typically involves the use of surfactants. Herein, we present a simple and robust surfactant-free method for the modulation of size and carboxylic acid functional group distribution in poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) thermoresponsive microgels, employing reaction pH as the single experimental parameter.