A Themed Issue in Honor of Prof. Radovan Cerny—Materials Science, Energy Storage, Diffraction and Crystal Chemistry

A special issue of Inorganics (ISSN 2304-6740). This special issue belongs to the section "Inorganic Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2024) | Viewed by 8078

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Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali, Via Vienna 2, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Interests: electrochemistry; solid-state electrolytes; mechanochemistry; operando characterization techniques; CO2 caption

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Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1950 Sion, Switzerland
Interests: energy materials; X-ray scattering; small angle scattering; material characterization; perovskite photovoltaics; MOF

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Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Interests: synthesis and characterization of inorganic materials; structural, chemical and physical properties; synchrotron and neutron diffraction
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Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center and Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Interests: synthesis and characterization of inorganic materials; structural, chemical and physical properties; energy storage as hydrogen or electricity in novel types of batteries; multivalent solid state batteries
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Crystallography and structural chemistry have provided deep insights into the solid state for around a century now. This knowledge is today the basis for understanding the relationship between structure and physical properties; however, even today, careful analysis of crystal chemistry often leads to interesting structural generalizations and also to surprising analogies between new and known materials. This approach provides new ideas for structural design and acts as a guide to making significant progress. The understanding of crystal chemistry is largely intuitive, that is, it is based on experience with crystallography, chemistry and structural science. Once they have obtained this expertise, a scientist may be called a ‘crystal chemist’. However, this knowledge is not isolated in its own community and only within interactions between chemists and physicists, but is greatly strengthened by using theoretical and computational methods to rationalise bonding in a solid state, and also by using complementary methods to characterize atomic motion, diffusion mechanisms, and gas release and uptake, etc. Therefore, herein we present a Special Issue entitled "Materials Science, Energy Storage, Diffraction and Crystal Chemistry", to highlight the central role of crystallography in the understanding of structure and properties of energy-related materials, and to celebrate the outstanding career of a world-renowned expert in crystallography, Prof. Dr. Radovan Černý, on the occasion of his retirement.

Radovan Černý is a Swiss crystallographer of Czech origin who has made great contributions to the powder diffraction methodology and crystal chemistry of intermetallics and metal hydrides, and more generally to the research field of energy storage materials science. He obtained his PhD degree at Charles University in Prague in the field of solid-state physics under the supervision of V. Valvoda, studying the alloys of hard materials based on the carbides, nitrides and oxides of titanium with X-ray powder diffraction.

From 1989–1990, he spent one year at the Institute of Mineralogy and Crystallography, University of Göttingen, in the Crystallography Laboratory of V. Kupčík, where he studied the microstructure of TiN thin films and developed texture correction in Seemann–Bohlin diffractometry. This work on TiN films was a part of a very successful project running in the Crystallography Laboratory at the Charles University in Prague, resulting in several important publications in the field of polycrystalline thin films.

Shortly after his return to Prague and defence of his thesis, he joined the faculty of the University of Geneva, where he worked first as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and then as "Maître d'enseignement et de recherche" in the Laboratory of Crystallography. In the same laboratory, he had the opportunity to collaborate with H. Flack, a world-wide expert in chirality studies by diffraction. In 2012, he was promoted to Associate Professor, and took full responsibility for the laboratory. He retired in August 2022, and continues his activities as an Emeritus Professor.

One of his scientific interests is crystallography in general, and more specifically powder diffraction methodology. This interest led to a collaboration with V. Favre-Nicolin, and to the development of the FOX software (fox.vincefn.net), which is widely used in the scientific community.

Another important contribution of Radovan Černý is the crystal chemistry of intermetallic compounds and metal hydrides. In Geneva, he had the opportunity to work with E. Parthé and to collaborate, among others, with O. Bodak and R. Gladyshevskii, part of a globally recognized group in this field, at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine. Intermetallic compounds have been intensively studied also at the Department of the Solid-State Physics (today, the Department of Quantum Matter Physics) in which the Crystallography Laboratory is located. The crystal structure of YbCu4.5, the most complex inorganic structure to be solved by the diffraction at that time, resulted from this collaboration. Later on, a whole series of intermetallic phases built using the same principle were discovered and named Černý's phases.

His work on metal hydrides began in Geneva in collaboration with K. Yvon, first as solid hydrogen stores and later as solid-state electrolytes. Together with his colleagues from the laboratory, Radovan Černý characterized the crystal structure, synthesis, reactivity and decomposition pathways of many intermetallic hydrides and complex hydrides such as metal hydridoborates, hydridoaluminates, imides and amides. Several excellent solid-state electrolytes for Na-ion batteries, based on closo-dodecahydridoborate anion and its carbon-substituted analogues, have been developed by his group.

Radovan Černý is also interested in the characterization of mineral species in collaboration with H. Sarp from the Museum of Natural History in Geneva. Nine new minerals have resulted from this collaboration, and the mineral Radovanite was named on his honor. He has long been active in the crystallographic community, first in the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association and later as president of the Swiss Crystallographic Association, a member of the EPDIC committee, and organizer of the EPDIC-10 meeting in Geneva.

We are pleased to invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue; regular articles, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Dr. Fabrizio Murgia
Dr. Pascal Schouwink
Prof. Dr. Yaroslav Filinchuk
Prof. Dr. Torben R. Jensen
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 4343 KiB  
Article
Structural Evolution of Olivine during Mechanochemically Assisted Mineral Carbonation under CO2 Flow
by Costantino Cau, Alessandro Taras, Gabriele Masia, Laura Caggiu, Stefano Enzo, Sebastiano Garroni, Fabrizio Murgia and Gabriele Mulas
Inorganics 2024, 12(10), 269; https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics12100269 - 15 Oct 2024
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Abstract
The mechanism of the mechanically assisted mineral carbonation of commercial olivine under the flow of a carbon dioxide (CO2)/nitrogen (N2) mixture has been elucidated by ex situ powder X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The overall CO2 conversion [...] Read more.
The mechanism of the mechanically assisted mineral carbonation of commercial olivine under the flow of a carbon dioxide (CO2)/nitrogen (N2) mixture has been elucidated by ex situ powder X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. The overall CO2 conversion depends on the rotational frequency of the mill’s engine, and it reaches 85% within 90 min of mechanical treatment at a flow rate of 2.5 L min−1. By tuning the frequency of rotation, the kinetics of CO2 conversion unveil a complex reaction pathway involving subsequent steps. Structural analyses suggest that clinochlore, a magnesium (Mg-)- and iron (Fe-)-containing aluminosilicate gathered among the components of olivine, is formed and consumed in different stages, thus promoting the CO2 sequestration that eventually results in the formation of hydrated and anhydrous Mg-based carbonates. Full article
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10 pages, 1848 KiB  
Article
Anion and Cation Dynamics in Mixed-Anion Hydroborate Na3(BH4)(B12H12): 1H, 11B, and 23Na NMR Studies
by Olga A. Babanova, Yolanda Sadikin, Roman V. Skoryunov, Alexei V. Soloninin and Alexander V. Skripov
Inorganics 2024, 12(10), 265; https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics12100265 - 8 Oct 2024
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Abstract
Sodium borohydride-closo-hydroborate Na3(BH4)(B12H12) exhibits high room-temperature ionic conductivity and high electrochemical stability. To study the dynamical properties of this mixed-anion compound at the microscopic level, we have measured the 1H, 11B, [...] Read more.
Sodium borohydride-closo-hydroborate Na3(BH4)(B12H12) exhibits high room-temperature ionic conductivity and high electrochemical stability. To study the dynamical properties of this mixed-anion compound at the microscopic level, we have measured the 1H, 11B, and 23Na nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rates over the temperature range of 8–573 K. Our 1H and 11B spin-lattice relaxation measurements have revealed two types of reorientational jump motion. The faster motional process attributed to reorientations of the [BH4] anions is characterized by an activation energy of 159 meV, and the corresponding reorientational jump rate reaches ~108 s−1 near 130 K. The slower process ascribed to reorientations of the larger [B12H12] anions is characterized by an activation energy of 319 meV, and the corresponding reorientational jump rate reaches ~108 s−1 near 240 K. The results of the 23Na nuclear magnetic resonance measurements are consistent with the fast long-range diffusion of Na+ ions in Na3(BH4)(B12H12). The diffusive jump rate of Na+ is found to reach ~104 s−1 at 300 K and ~8 × 108 s−1 at 530 K. A comparison of these jump rates with the ionic conductivity data suggests the importance of correlations between diffusing ions. Full article
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12 pages, 2501 KiB  
Article
Combined Effect of Halogenation and SiO2 Addition on the Li-Ion Conductivity of LiBH4
by Valerio Gulino, Laura de Kort, Peter Ngene, Petra de Jongh and Marcello Baricco
Inorganics 2023, 11(12), 459; https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics11120459 - 26 Nov 2023
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Abstract
In this work, the combined effects of anion substitution (with Br and I) and SiO2 addition on the Li-ion conductivity in LiBH4 have been investigated. Hexagonal solid solutions with different compositions, h-Li(BH4)1−α(X)α [...] Read more.
In this work, the combined effects of anion substitution (with Br and I) and SiO2 addition on the Li-ion conductivity in LiBH4 have been investigated. Hexagonal solid solutions with different compositions, h-Li(BH4)1−α(X)α (X = Br, I), were prepared by ball milling and fully characterized. The most conductive composition for each system was then mixed with different amounts of SiO2 nanoparticles. If the amount of added complex hydride fully fills the original pore volume of the added silica, in both LiBH4-LiBr/SiO2 and LiBH4-LiI/SiO2 systems, the Li-ion conductivity was further increased compared to the h-Li(BH4)1−α(X)α solid solutions alone. The use of LiBH4-LiX instead of LiBH4 in composites with SiO2 enabled the development of an optimal conductive pathway for the Li ions, since the h-Li(BH4)1−α(X)α possesses a higher conductivity than LiBH4. In fact, the Li conductivity of the silica containing h-Li(BH4)1−α(X)α is higher than the maximum reached in LiBH4-SiO2 alone. Therefore, a synergetic effect of combining halogenation and interface engineering is demonstrated in this work. Full article
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12 pages, 3317 KiB  
Article
Heavy-Fermion Properties of Yb2Pd2SnH≈2
by Silvie Maskova-Cerna, Ernst Bauer, Mauro Giovannini and Ladislav Havela
Inorganics 2023, 11(10), 414; https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics11100414 - 18 Oct 2023
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Abstract
A hydride of Yb2Pd2Sn could be synthesized with approximately 2 H atoms per f.u. The hydrogenation leads to a volume expansion while preserving the tetragonal symmetry (P4/mbm). The lattice reaction is strongly anisotropic, and the [...] Read more.
A hydride of Yb2Pd2Sn could be synthesized with approximately 2 H atoms per f.u. The hydrogenation leads to a volume expansion while preserving the tetragonal symmetry (P4/mbm). The lattice reaction is strongly anisotropic, and the 5% expansion in c is partly compensated by the 0.5% compression in a. The hydride is paramagnetic at least down to 0.5 K. Yb remains at or very close to the 3+ (4f13) state, as in Yb2Pd2Sn. Specific heat C/T vs. T shows an upturn existing already in Yb2Pd2Sn, but it is much more pronounced in the hydride (1.8 J/mol f.u. K2 for T → 0, i.e., more than twice higher than in its precursor). This is interpreted as lowering the Kondo temperature due to H bonding. Full article
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Review

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28 pages, 4780 KiB  
Review
Mechanochemical Synthesis of Solid-State Electrolytes
by Sanja Burazer and Jasminka Popović
Inorganics 2024, 12(2), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics12020054 - 6 Feb 2024
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Abstract
In recent decades, the field of materials research has put significant emphasis on developing innovative platforms that have the potential to address the increasing global energy demand. Batteries have demonstrated their enormous effectiveness in the context of energy storage and consumption. However, safety [...] Read more.
In recent decades, the field of materials research has put significant emphasis on developing innovative platforms that have the potential to address the increasing global energy demand. Batteries have demonstrated their enormous effectiveness in the context of energy storage and consumption. However, safety issues associated with liquid electrolytes combined with a low abundance of lithium in the Earth’s crust gave rise to the development of solid-state electrolytes and cations other than lithium. The commercial production of solid-state batteries demands the scaling up of solid-state electrolyte syntheses as well as the mixing of electrode composites containing solid electrolytes. This review is motivated by the recent literature, and it gives a thorough overview of solid-state electrolytes and highlights the significance of the employed milling and dispersing procedures for the resulting ionic transport properties. Full article
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