Rapid and Scalable Manufacturing of Graphene Electrodes for Next Generation Lithium-ion Batteries

用于全电动汽车和便携式电子设备的下一代锂离子电池将需要在能量和功率密度方面取得突破性进展。为了实现这样的改进，新的阳极和阴极材料概念必须以可扩展和经济有效的方式开发和制造。其中一个这样的材料概念是石墨烯基电极材料。然而，传统的石墨烯电极制造工艺由于缺乏工艺可扩展性和大规模生产而不可行。该项目的目标是开发新的方法来克服这些挑战，并使石墨烯基电极材料的可扩展和经济高效的制造成为可能。这可能会导致新的电池技术，除了便携式电子产品，如手机，笔记本电脑和平板电脑，也可以在下一代无线通信设备，固定存储电池，微芯片和下一代混合动力和全电动汽车中发挥核心作用。为了解决石墨烯电极制造工艺的大规模可扩展性，将探索两种新的氧化石墨烯沉积方法。其中包括电场驱动的电镀工艺和基于流体流动的超声波喷涂工艺。此外，使用光热还原工艺，将形成高多孔石墨烯电极。为了证明工艺的可扩展性，将开发用于石墨烯纸制造的基于网络的连续（卷对卷）沉积工艺。这将包括设计、原型制作和测试一个试验台。一旦投入使用，该试验台将用于探索工艺变量和条件对各种关键性能指标（如产量和吞吐量）的影响。通过该可扩展制造工艺生产的石墨烯电极的结构、性能和性能将被深入表征，以确认它在初步实验室规模测试中观察到的能量和功率密度方面提供了突破性的改进。

The next generation of Lithium-ion batteries for all-electric vehicles as well as portable electronics devices will require breakthrough improvements in both energy and power density. In order to achieve such improvements radically new materials concepts for the anode and cathode will have to be developed and manufactured in a scalable and cost-effective manner. One such material concept is that of graphene-based electrode materials. However traditional manufacturing processes for graphene electrodes are not viable due to lack of process scalability and mass manufacture. The objective of this project is to develop novel approaches to overcome these challenges and enable the scalable and cost-effective manufacturing of graphene-based electrode materials. This can lead to new battery technologies which in addition to portable electronics such as cell phones, laptops and tablet computers could also play a central role in next generation wireless communication devices, stationary storage batteries, microchips and in next generation hybrid and all-electric vehicles.To address mass scalability of the graphene electrode manufacturing process, two new graphene oxide deposition approaches will be explored. These include an electric-field driven process called electroplating and one fluid flow-based process, namely ultrasonic spraying. Furthermore, using a photo-thermal reduction process, a highly porous graphene electrode will be formed. To demonstrate process scalability, a web-based continuous (roll-to-roll) deposition process for graphene paper manufacturing will be developed. This will involve designing, prototyping, and testing an experimental test-bed. Once operational, the test-bed will be used to explore the effect of process variables and conditions on various key performance metrics such as yield and throughput. The structure, properties and performance of the graphene electrodes produced by the proposed scalable manufacturing process will be characterized in-depth to confirm that it provides the breakthrough improvements in energy and power density that were observed in preliminary lab-scale testing.