SMU, Southwest Research Institute launch two projects to advance the future of energy storage

In brief:

• SMU and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) are working on two SPARKS-funded research projects focused on advancing next-generation energy storage technologies.
• The first project aims to improve solid-state batteries for electric vehicles by engineering ultra-thin films that stabilize critical battery interfaces, helping create safer, longer-lasting, faster-charging batteries with higher energy density.
• A second project will develop an AI-driven hybrid microgrid controller that integrates battery energy storage, hydrogen storage, renewable energy, and digital twin technology to improve reliability, resilience, and sustainability for energy-intensive facilities such as AI data centers and the electric grid.

SMU engineering researchers are teaming with Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) on two new projects aimed at solving some of the biggest challenges facing next-generation energy storage — from creating safer, longer-lasting batteries for electric vehicles to developing artificial intelligence that can help power tomorrow's data centers.

The projects are funded through the Seed Projects Aligning Research, Knowledge and Skills (SPARKS) joint program, which seeks to strengthen and cultivate long-term research between SwRI and the SMU Lyle School of Engineering.

Advancing solid-state batteries

One project focuses on advancing solid-state batteries, which are safer, longer-lasting, and more efficient alternatives to traditional lithium-ion batteries. Offering faster charging and greater energy storage potential, solid-state batteries are especially promising for powering electric vehicles, but current designs are held back by electrodes and interfaces that degrade over time. SwRI and SMU will address this bottleneck and work together to develop a more stable solid-state battery design architecture.

Nearly all electric vehicles today use lithium‑ion batteries with a liquid electrolyte, the medium that carries ions between positive and negative electrodes. Liquid electrolytes are highly flammable and impose performance limitations. Solid-state batteries replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid material and use a lithium metal anode as the source of lithium ions. These components in solid-state batteries enable faster charging and significantly higher energy density while also offering inherently safer operation as they utilize solid materials instead of flammable liquids.

“Solid-state batteries are a next‑generation technology with huge potential for energy storage, particularly for electric vehicles, but they haven’t been widely commercialized because of manufacturing and materials challenges,” said John Hemmerling, a senior research engineer in SwRI’s Materials Engineering Department. “One of the biggest technical hurdles is the unstable interface between the lithium metal anode and the solid electrolyte.”

In solid-state batteries, a solid lithium metal anode is in direct contact with a solid electrolyte, and that interface is difficult to manage because lithium is highly reactive and can easily damage or chemically interact with materials that it touches, compromising the battery’s performance and stability.

“The lithium can also deposit in uneven growths, known as dendrites, that damage the contact area and hinder the transfer of ions,” Hemmerling said. “This accelerates battery degradation, making the battery less efficient over time.”

Hemmerling will collaborate with SwRI Staff Scientist Jianliang Lin and SMU J. Lindsay Embrey Trustee Professor and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Rong Kou to engineer ultra-thin films to reduce degradation and resistance at the anode-electrolyte interface, with the goal of improving the reliability and stability of solid-state batteries.

“By combining SMU's expertise in battery fabrication and advanced characterization and SwRI's advanced thin-film coating technologies, our project will systematically engineer these interfaces and directly observe how lithium grows during battery operation,” Kou said. “This research will not only improve battery performance but also uncover the fundamental scientific principles needed to design the next generation of safer, longer-lasting, and higher-energy batteries.”

Through a process called interfacial engineering, the researchers will deposit ultra-thin films tens to hundreds of nanometers thick onto the anode. These films include metals, metal oxides, and metal alloys, precisely tuned to stabilize the interface. The project will leverage SwRI’s expertise in thin-film deposition and SMU’s strengths in solid-state battery development to establish quantitative structure-property-performance relationships linking interfacial chemistry, lithium nucleation behavior, and long-term electrochemical performance.

“Although our current work is focused on a small, proof‑of‑concept scale, the thin‑film deposition techniques we’re using are scalable, so if the concepts prove successful, they can be adapted relatively easily to larger‑scale manufacturing,” Hemmerling said.

Longer-lasting energy storage for the data centers and the electric grid

A second SPARKS project aims to develop an AI-driven controller for hybrid microgrid systems that integrate multiple energy sources and storage systems to function.

Battery systems are effective for short-term energy storage. Hydrogen storage systems, on the other hand, offer the potential to extend energy storage duration from hours to days. This can potentially enable greater system resilience and efficiency during periods of prolonged outages or renewable energy shortfalls, as energy demands rise due to the proliferation of AI computing and data centers.

Another SPARKS project is seeking to develop an AI-driven controller for hybrid microgrids that can deliver reliable power to AI data centers and other energy-intensive facilities.

The SwRI and SMU project will develop an AI controller for a microgrid configuration that integrates a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a long-duration hydrogen energy storage system (HESS). The application will integrate fuel cells, advanced solid-state storage technologies, renewable energy generation and the local energy grid for power. The grid will use electrolyzer devices to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis for storage.

The controller will be designed to manage and coordinate the available grid’s energy sources in real time to ensure optimal reliability, reduce operational costs, improve renewable energy utilization, and enhance system sustainability for critical systems, such as data centers, and other facilities that require continuous power and low-carbon backup sources.

“The rapid expansion of AI computing is creating unprecedented electricity demand, challenging both utilities and data center operators to find reliable and scalable power solutions,” said Richard Fu, a research engineer in SwRI’s Powertrain Engineering Division and one of the project’s principal investigators. “Hybrid microgrids are one way that industry could tackle this energy challenge. We are working to create a control system that helps them integrate long-duration energy storage and renewable power resources without sacrificing reliability.”

Jianhui Wang, Mary and Richard Templeton Centennial Chair of Electrical Engineering and a professor in SMU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will develop the AI controller. It will be designed to regulate the microgrid’s performance efficiently. The system will use a digital twin, a virtual replica of the system continuously updated with data from its physical counterpart, to emulate realistic operational conditions and workloads, such as those needed to run data centers, and provide algorithms, modeling and data to help the AI controller effectively manage energy allocation. 

“By leveraging a digital twin, our AI controller can learn optimal energy dispatch strategies under realistic data center workloads,” said Wang. “This physics-informed AI approach enables intelligent coordination between short- and long-duration storage while respecting equipment constraints. Ultimately, we aim to deliver more resilient and sustainable microgrid operations.” – SwRI and SMU