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Highlights from the First Webinar: Inside Batteries – What Really Happens When They Work
The first webinar of the new series “Time and Length-Scale Operando Bridging Techniques to Study Battery Interfaces” took place on 23 October 2025.
The event kicked off a collaboration between our project, OPERA, and ULTRABAT within the Battery2030+ initiative.
The goal is simple but ambitious — to help scientists see inside batteries while they work.
First Webinar: SAXS/WAXS Techniques
The opening session will feature Sandrine Lyonnard from , presenting “SAXS/WAXS Techniques for 1D, 2D, and 3D Mapping of Structural Changes in Battery Materials.”
Dr. Sandrine Lyonnard from CEA Grenoble (SyMMES) led the opening session.
Her talk focused on SAXS/WAXS techniques — advanced X-ray methods that show how materials change during charging and discharging.
In plain terms, these tools let researchers “watch” what happens inside a battery without taking it apart.
She explained how the structure of materials inside a battery shifts at different scales — from nanometers to micrometers.
These tiny changes have a big impact on how long a battery lasts and how safely it performs.
Dr. Lyonnard shared real data from silicon-based anodes, one of the most promising materials for next-generation batteries.
Silicon can store a lot of energy, but it also expands and cracks with use.
Through SAXS/WAXS, scientists can now track this process live and understand how to make silicon more durable.
The results showed how the capacity of test cells dropped over hundreds of charge cycles — and how these losses linked to structural changes inside.
This kind of insight helps engineers design better materials and predict battery aging more accurately.
The discussion after the talk stressed one thing — no single method can explain everything.
To fully understand batteries, researchers must combine data from multiple tools and timescales.
That collaboration is exactly what this webinar series aims to build.
Next sessions will explore other cutting-edge techniques for studying reactions, materials, and interfaces in real time.
Together, they move us closer to longer-lasting, safer, and more sustainable batteries.
Building Collaboration Through Knowledge
This webinar series represents a joint effort by OPINCHARGE, OPERA, and ULTRABAT to bring together Europe’s battery research community around advanced characterisation methods, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate innovation in interface science
