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Research Digest — 2026-07-31

ML Interatomic Potentials for Battery Materials

1. Machine learning interatomic potentials for lithium battery electrolytes: a review

Source: Seoul National University (Elsevier) · 📅 2026-01-15 · ↗ Open paper

Comprehensive review of MLIPs applied to both solid-state and liquid lithium battery electrolytes, covering bulk transport, interfacial degradation, and SEI formation. Summarizes training data strategies, active learning protocols, and remaining challenges for multi-component oxide/sulfide systems.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Review paper providing roadmap context for the group's ML potential efforts — useful for Naibing Wu (polymer) and Yanhao Deng (inorganic) alike.


2. Halide Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Sodium Batteries: From Fundamentals to Applications

Source: Advanced Materials (adma.202521368) · 📅 2025-07-20 · ↗ Open paper

Comprehensive review of sodium-based halide electrolytes covering ion transport mechanisms, structure-property relationships, and synthesis routes. Highlights the potential for low-cost, earth-abundant sodium alternatives to lithium halide systems.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Provides broader context for halide electrolyte chemistry — relevant for future research direction discussions and potential expansion beyond Li systems.


3. Research Progress on Halide Electrolytes and Their Air Stability

Source: Journal of Inorganic Materials (20250055) · 📅 2025-07-10 · ↗ Open paper

Systematic review of halide SSE air stability covering hydrolysis mechanisms, moisture sensitivity classification, and mitigation strategies including surface passivation and compositional engineering.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Air stability is a practical challenge for halide electrolyte processing — relevant context for Yan Li and Mengke Li's simulation of degradation pathways.

Solid-State Battery Interfaces

4. Toward AI ecosystems for electrolyte and interface engineering in solid-state batteries

Source: Science Advances (aea0638) · 📅 2025-06-25 · ↗ Open paper

Presents an AI-driven ecosystem combining ML potentials, active learning, and high-throughput screening to accelerate discovery of stable electrolyte/electrode interfaces. Demonstrates identification of novel coating materials that suppress interfacial degradation.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Highly relevant — aligns with group strategy of combining ML potentials with interface engineering. Applicable to Umang Agarwal's heterogeneous interface work.


5. Ion Speciation and Mobility in Solid Polymer Electrolytes

Source: Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (5c01336) · 📅 2025-06-01 · ↗ Open paper

MD study of ion speciation and transport in PEO-based SPEs with different lithium salts (LiTFSI, LiPF6, LiClO4), revealing that counterion identity strongly affects ion pairing, segmental dynamics, and ultimately lithium transference number.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Directly relevant to Naibing Wu's simulation work on solid polymer electrolytes — salt choice effects are central to his research.

Dendrite Growth and Phase Field Modeling

6. Phase field simulation of dendrite growth in solid-state lithium batteries

Source: arXiv (2509.02013) · 📅 2025-09-03 · ↗ Open paper

Develops a phase-field model for lithium dendrite growth in solid-state batteries, coupling electrochemical and mechanical fields to predict growth morphology under different operating conditions. Identifies critical current densities and defect-driven nucleation sites.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Directly relevant to Shoutong Jin's phase field simulation work on dendrite growth — methodological overlap and benchmarking opportunity.


7. Accelerating ion transport in polycrystalline conductors: roles of pores and grain boundaries

Source: Chemistry of Materials · 📅 2025-07-15 · ↗ Open paper

Investigates how porosity and grain boundary architecture collectively determine effective ionic conductivity in polycrystalline solid electrolytes. Shows that optimized grain boundary chemistry can overcome typical transport bottlenecks.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Highly relevant to Cheng Peng's work — provides design principles for engineering grain boundary transport in solid electrolytes.


8. Hybrid Coating on Sulfide Electrolytes via Lithium Salts for Dendrite Suppression

Source: ACS Nano (5c10768) · 📅 2025-07-10 · ↗ Open paper

Reports an in-situ hybrid coating strategy using lithium salts on sulfide SSEs that simultaneously improves moisture stability and suppresses lithium dendrite penetration, enabling stable cycling of Li metal batteries.

Relevance to DENG.Group

Relevant to group's sulfide electrolyte research direction and Shoutong Jin's dendrite work — coating strategies could be simulation targets.