Design of Cathode Coating Using Niobate and Phosphate Hybrid Material for Sulfide-Based Solid-State Battery.

Coating the surface of the cathode active material of all-solid-state batteries with sulfide-based solid electrolytes is key for improving and enhancing the battery performance. Although lithium niobate (LiNbO) is one of the most representative coating materials, its low durability at a highly charged potential and high temperature is an impediment to the realization of high-performance all-solid-state batteries. In this study, we developed new hybrid coating materials consisting of lithium niobate (Li-Nb-O) and lithium phosphate (Li-P-O) and investigated the influence of the ratio of P/(Nb + P) on the durability performance.

Development of heavy mineral and heavy element database of soil sediments in Japan using synchrotron radiation X-ray powder diffraction and high-energy (116 keV) X-ray fluorescence analysis: 1. Case study of Kofu and Chiba region.

We have started the construction of a nationwide forensic soil sediment database for Japan based on the heavy mineral and trace heavy element compositions of stream sediments collected at 3024 points all over Japan obtained by high-resolution synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction (SR-XRD) and high-energy synchrotron X-ray fluorescence analysis (HE-SR-XRF). In this study, the performance of both techniques was demonstrated by analyzing soil sediments from two different geological regions, the Kofu and Chiba regions in Kanto province, to construct database that can be applied in the future to provenance analysis of soil evidence from a crime scene. The sediments from the quaternary volcanic lithology of the Chiba region were found to be dominated by heavy minerals of volcanic origin - orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and amphibole, and the REEs (rare earth elements) within the region showed similar geochemical behavior.