Li-ion batteries are the essential energy-storage building blocks of modern society. However, producing ultra-high electrochemical performance in safe and sustainable batteries for example, e-mobility, and portable and stationary applications, demands overcoming major technological challenges. Materials engineering and new chemistries are key aspects to achieving this objective, intimately linked to the use of advanced characterization techniques. In particular, operando investigations are currently attracting enormous interest. Synchrotron- and neutron-based bulk techniques are increasingly employed as they provide unique insights into the chemical, morphological, and structural changes inside electrodes and electrolytes across multiple length scales with high time/spatial resolutions. However, data acquisition, data analysis, and scientific outcomes must be accelerated to increase the overall benefits to the academic and industrial communities, requiring a paradigm shift beyond traditional single-shot, sophisticated experiments. Here a multi-scale and multi-technique integrated workflow is presented to enhance bulk characterization, based on standardized and automated data acquisition and analysis for high-throughput and high-fidelity experiments, the optimization of versatile and tunable cells, as well as multi-modal correlative characterization. Furthermore, new mechanisms, methods and organizations such as artificial intelligence-aided modeling-driven strategies, coordinated beamtime allocations, and community-unified infrastructures are discussed in order to highlight perspectives in battery research at large scale facilities.

The topic of this paper is the CDIO Standards, specifically the formulation of CDIO Standards version 3.0. The paper first reviews the potential change drivers that motivate a revision of the Standards. Such change drivers are identified both externally (i.e., from outside of the CDIO community) and internally. It is found that external change drivers have affected the perceptions of what problems engineers should address, what knowledge future engineers should possess and what are the most effective teaching practices in engineering education. Internally, the paper identifies criticism of the Standards, as well as ideas for development, that have been codified as proposed additional CDIO Standards. With references to these change drivers, five areas are identified for the revision: sustainability, digitalization of teaching and learning; service; and faculty competence. A revised version of the Standards is presented. In addition, it is proposed that a new category of Standards is established, “optional standards”. Optional Standards are a complement to the twelve “basic” Standards, and serve to guide educational development and profiling beyond the current Standards. A selected set of proposed optional Standards are recommended for further evaluation and possibly acceptance by the CDIO community