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(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers at North Carolina State University have studied the behavior of birnessite – a hydrated layered form of manganese oxide – to understand what happens when ions penetrate very small spaces. The adsorption of ions from the electrolyte at an electrode surface is a ubiquitous process of use for both existing and emerging electrochemical energy technologies. The researchers found that nanoconfined water in between the layers of birnessite is effectively serving as a buffer that makes capacitive behavior possible without causing significant structural change in the birnessite.
