Multilayered Superionic Conductive Conformal Solid Electrolyte for Lithium Metal/High Nickel Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) Cells
The Department of Energy is leading efforts to develop advanced battery technologies for Electric Vehicles (EVs). Improving the performance and lowering the cost of batteries will help to further increase market penetration of EVs, consequently reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The current state-of-the-art in EV battery technology is Lithium Ion batteries (LIBs); however, LIBs would significantly benefit from higher specific energy densities (currently about 170~265 Wh/kg) and improved durability. Lighter and more durable batteries will increase the range of EVs and/or lower the total battery cost per vehicle. The electrode materials determine the specific energy of LIBs. An attractive and straightforward approach to increase the specific energy is to utilize new electrode materials that have larger capacities. Among all the future electrode material candidates, lithium metal is the most promising anode due to its large capacity and largest negative voltage. However, traditional liquid electrolytes can neither prevent Li dendrite formation nor are stable with respect to lithium metal for prolonged cycles. Replacement of the liquid electrolytes with solid electrolytes could be a viable solution for lithium metal anode systems. The proposed technology in this project is to develop a superionically conductive (conductivity > 10-3 S/cm at room temperature) solid polymer electrolyte that is suitable for Lithium Metal/High Nickel Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) cells. In the course of the Phase I study, the team has demonstrated a superionic conductive, fluorinated, solid polymer electrolyte with ionic conductivity of 1.9 mS/cm. A multilayered polymer electrolyte film with thickness of 42 µm was fabricated and exhibited superior electrochemical stability. The Li|SPE|NCA cells with areal capacity over 2.5 mAh/cm2 were demonstrated and cycled for 200 cycles with capacity retention over 76%. The initial pouch cell results showed the solid electrolyte can work with cathode having mass loading over 22 mg/cm2. This work will enable solid state Li batteries with high energy densities which certainly will be beneficial for EV applications. Beyond the EV application, safe batteries with ultrahigh energy densities will attract attention of manufactures from consumer electronics industry.
- Research Organization:
- Akron PolyEnergy, Inc.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Contributing Organization:
- The University of Akron
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0020014
- OSTI ID:
- 1900253
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- DE-SC0020014
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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