Wesley Surta

Oregon State University | OSU

High oxidation state metal cations have diverse roles in carbon dioxide removal (direct air capture and at-the-source) includ-ing providing basic oxygens for chemisorption reactions, direct binding of carbonate, and low-temperature release of CO2 for regeneration of capture media. Moreover, metal oxide systems and aqueous metal-oxo species are stab...

Magnesium batteries attract interest as alternative energy‐storage devices because of elemental abundance and potential for high energy density. Development is limited by the absence of suitable cathodes, associated with poor diffusion kinetics resulting from strong interactions between Mg2+ and the host structure. V2PS10 is reported as a positive...

Magnesium batteries attract interest as alternative energy‐storage devices because of elemental abundance and potential for high energy density. Development is limited by the absence of suitable cathodes, associated with poor diffusion kinetics resulting from strong interactions between Mg2+ and the host structure. V2PS10 is reported as a positive...

Glasses frequently reveal structural relaxation that leads to changes in their physical properties including enthalpy, specific volume, and resistivity. Analyzing the short‐range order (SRO) obtained from electron diffraction by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in combination with Reverse‐Monte‐Carlo (RMC) simulations is shown to provide info...

Aqueous solutions of zirconium and hafnium (M) halides (X) with atomic ratios α = X/M near 1 form glasses on evaporation. Herein, we describe the preparation and properties of these glasses and discuss the nature of the crystal-glass equilibria beyond the pure glass compositions. Small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SWAXS) studies reveal increas...

Understanding the structure-property relationships of materials in order to supress thermal conductivity is crucial for developing efficient thermoelectric generators and thermal barrier coatings. We synthesise two mixed-anion materials, Bi 8 CsO 8 SeX 7 (X...

The synthesis, structure, and properties of single crystalline Mn1.05Bi in the polar space group Fdd2 are reported. Mn1.05Bi is isostructural to the previously reported Mn1.05Rh0.02Bi, with both ordered interstitials and ordered vacancies of Mn leading to Kagome-like layers. The ordering of the interstitials breaks inversion symmetry and forces the...

Sodium ion batteries (NIBs) are an attractive alternative to lithium‐ion batteries in applications that require large‐scale energy storage due to sodium's high natural abundance and low cost. Hard carbon (HC) is the most promising anode material for NIBs; however, there is a knowledge gap in the understanding of the sodium binding mechanism that pr...

The synthesis, structure, and properties of the three-anion superlattice materials Bi4O4SeBr2 and Bi6O6Se2Cl2 are reported. These materials crystallise in structures that form part of a homologous series of compounds comprised of stackings of BiOCl- and Bi2O2Se-like units. Bi4O4SeBr2 is analogous to Bi4O4Se2Cl2, whereas Bi6O6Se2Cl2 contains an addi...

SPS began as a tool to densify refractory metals, but its ability to rapidly produce dense consolidated materials with exceptional properties across a gamut of materials has brought the technique to the point where commercial instruments are now accessible at many academic institutions. As new functional materials are investigated, many physical pr...

Li-rich rocksalt oxides are promising candidates as high-energy density cathode materials for next-generation Li-ion batteries because they present extremely diverse structures and compositions. Most reported materials in this family contain as many cations as anions, a characteristic of the ideal cubic closed-packed rocksalt composition. In this w...

A hexagonal analogue, Li6SiO4Cl2, of the cubic lithium argyrodite family of solid electrolytes is isolated by a computation–experiment approach. We show that the argyrodite structure is equivalent to the cubic antiperovskite solid electrolyte structure through anion site and vacancy ordering within a cubic stacking of two close-packed layers. Const...

Neutron diffraction and x-ray pair distribution function experiments were performed to investigate the magnetic and local crystal structures of Ba2FeSbSe5 and to compare them with the average (i.e., long range) structural model previously obtained by single-crystal x-ray diffraction. Changes in the local crystal structure (i.e., in the second coord...

Magneto‐caloric materials offer the possibility to design environmentally friendlier thermal management devices compared to the widely used gas‐based systems. The challenges to develop this solid‐state based technology lie in the difficulty of finding materials presenting a large magneto‐caloric effect over a broad temperature span together with su...

Neutron diffraction and X-ray pair distribution function (XPDF) experiments were performed in order to investigate the magnetic and local crystal structures of Ba2FeSbSe5 and to compare them to the average (i.e. long-range) structural model, previously obtained by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Changes in the local crystal structure (i.e. in the...

The piezoelectric devices widespread in society use noncentrosymmetric Pb-based oxides because of their outstanding functional properties. The highest figures of merit reported are for perovskites based on the parent Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3 (PMN), which is a relaxor: a centrosymmetric material with local symmetry breaking that enables functional propertie...

With the goal of finding new lithium solid electrolytes by a combined computational-experimental method, the exploration of the Li-Al-O-S phase field resulted in the discovery of a new sulphide Li3AlS3. The structure of the new phase was determined through an approach combining synchrotron X-ray and neutron diffraction with ⁶Li and ²⁷Al magic angle...

The design of Faradaic battery electrodes that exhibit high rate capability and long cycle life equivalent to those of the electrodes of electrical double-layer capacitors is a big challenge. Here we report a strategy to fill this performance gap using the concept of Grotthuss proton conduction, in which proton transfer takes place by means of conc...

This study reveals the transport behavior of lattice water during proton (de)insertion in the structure of the hexagonal WO3·0.6H2O electrode. By monitoring the mass evolution of this electrode material via electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance, we discovered (1) WO3·0.6H2O incorporates additional lattice water during initial cycling; (2) The...

Sodium bismuthate is a commercially available, inexpensive, non-toxic and very potent inorganic oxidant and photocatalyst. It is one of the important reagents for oxidative separation of Am³⁺ from the chemically similar lanthanide ions, for its recovery or safe disposal from reprocessed nuclear fuel. While the structure of NaBiO3 has been described...

Two new perovskites, (Bi0.5A0.5)(Sc0.5Nb0.5)O3 where A = Na⁺ and K⁺, have been made phase pure for the first time. The synthesis procedure that prevented formation of pyrochlore impurities is described. B-site ordering in A = K⁺ is successfully achieved by prolonged heating. Combined Rietveld refinement on synchrotron X-ray diffraction and neutron...

Structure-property relationships were determined for the family of 3-layer Aurivillius materials Bi2Sr(A)TiNb2O12 (A = Ca²⁺, Sr²⁺, Ba²⁺). X-ray and neutron diffraction along with selected area electron diffraction indicate that Bi2SrBaTiNb2O12 crystallizes in the non-polar I4/mmm space group whereas the polar B2cb space group best describes Bi2SrCa...

Hard carbon is the leading candidate anode for commercialization of Na-ion batteries. Hard carbon has a unique local atomic structure, which is composed of nanodomains of layered rumpled sheets that have short-range local order resembling graphene within each layer, but complete disorder along the c-axis between layers. A primary challenge holding...

We report a facile method for the infiltration of late 3d transition metals into nanoporous carbon. This method allows for the deposition of Ni, Fe, and Co, as well as their binary alloys, NiFe, NiCo, and FeCo. Utilizing NH 3 -saturated water nanodroplets adsorbed within nanoporous carbon, metal precursors are precipitated as metal hydroxides with...

The capacity of hard carbon anodes in Na-ion batteries rarely reaches values beyond 300 mAh/g. We report that doping POx into local structures of hard carbon increases its reversible capacity from 283 to 359 mAh/g. We confirm that the doped POx is redox inactive by X-ray adsorption near edge structure measurements, thus not contributing to the high...

Na-ion batteries (NIBs) have received much attention, especially for large-scale energy storage, due to its cost and sustainability advantage over Li-ion batteries (LIBs). Rapid progress has been made on NIB cathodes, including layered metal oxides and polyanionic compounds. For the anode side, despite great advances being made on various candidate...

Recently, there has been much discussion about Na-ion batteries (NIBs) emerging as one ideal technology for grid-level energy storage. Large-scale usage of NIBs can be sustainable as the raw materials involved in making such batteries are cheap, plentiful and non-toxic. Thus far, they have demonstrated very promising electrochemical performances in...

Non-graphitizable carbon, also known as hard carbon, is considered one of the most promising anodes for the emerging Na-ion batteries. The current mechanistic understanding of Na-ion storage in hard carbon is based on the 'card-house' model first raised in the early 2000's. This model describes that Na-ion insertion occurs first through intercalati...