Marine cyanobacteria are main contributors to carbon and nitrogen fixation, yet they are limited by iron availability. The most abundant and smallest photosynthetic organism on Earth is the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus that can thrive in low nutrient waters. Interestingly, in contrast to most cyanobacteria that possess two FutA proteins to bind Fe(II) and Fe(III), Prochlorococcus has a...
This contribution discusses the application of Diffraction Computed Tomography (DCT), including both X-ray and neutron probes, as a powerful method for non-destructive structural analysis in materials science. DCT uses a pencil-beam scanning technique to yield the reconstructed images of internal structure and chemical gradients of materials, extending the traditional imaging approaches. A...
Hydrogen atoms represent a large fraction of the total atomic content of macromolecules. Macromolecular X-ray crystallography affords the localisation of only the most ordered hydrogen atoms at (sub-)atomic resolution (around 1.2 Å or higher). However, many hydrogen atoms of biochemical significance remain undetectable by this method. Differently, neutron diffraction methods enable the...
The Swiss-Norwegian beamlines at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility have now been in user operation for almost three decades. Over the last decade, the scientific activities on the beamlines have become more and more focused on solving problems in materials science and crystal chemistry, that also implies an advent of new users with little experience in synchrotron experimentation....
During the operation of Li-ion batteries, Li-ions are exchanged between the cathode and the anode of the battery. During this exchange, the lithium gets extracted (deintercalated) from one electrode and inserted (intercalated) into the other electrode. During this mass transport the structure of the materials changes, which leads to and volume expansion/contraction of the electrode materials....
The symmetry of the material is an important factor determining its properties. In this work, we demonstrate [1] both experimentally and by numerical simulations that the actual symmetry of the rutile phase of TiO2 is CaCl2-type [2] orthorhombic, described with space group Pnnm, in contrast to what it is commonly believed that rutile TiO2 has a tetragonal symmetry [2-4], described with space...
This study investigates the structural dynamics of silicon-containing graphite anodes in commercial lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) using systematic X-ray and neutron powder diffraction techniques. Silicon, increasingly used in state-of-the-art LIB anodes, due to its potential to enhance battery performance, shows significant volume expansion, and the amorphization of silicon during lithiation...
For more than three decades, lithium-ion batteries (LIB) have been widely used as power sources for portable electronics and are of interest for electric vehicles and network applications (large-scale electricity storage). While there have been significant changes from the initial design of the LIB, the main solvents constituting the liquid electrolyte, responsible for the charge transfer...
