I-Corps Teams: A Low Cost and High Performance Anode for Lithium Ion Batteries with Application to Electric Vehicles

现有的锂离子电池（LIB）技术具有严重的成本和性能限制，这阻碍了可再生能源的有效利用以及向电动车辆（EV）、混合动力电动车辆（HEV）和插电式混合动力车辆（PHEV）的快速过渡。尽管制造业对具有更大功率和更长运行时间的更高比能量密度的LIB的需求，但在新产品开发计划中，更强调降低整体制造成本。 目前，制造步骤导致LIB组的总成本为400 -600美元/kWh，其仍必须降低3- 4倍才能与传统燃料箱竞争，以便在HEV，PHEV和EV的广泛商业化中占据一席之地。需要巨大的努力来降低加工成本、材料成本和所需材料的量以满足该目标。一种新的碳结构？碳微/纳米柱（C-MNP）是由美国马萨诸塞州洛厄尔大学发明的一种新型锂离子电池负极材料。基于C-MNP阳极的LIB在比能量方面表现出显著的改善。此外，新的阳极制造工艺非常适合于大规模生产，并且与现有的电池制造工艺兼容，从而显著降低了新电池制造的投资。该技术可以为汽车锂电池制造商提供高性能和低成本的阳极制造工艺，这将加速电动汽车的广泛商业化。拟议的研究还将有助于对NIL技术，聚合物碳化，离子扩散和电荷表面相互作用的基本理解。此外，所开发的C-MNP结构和制造工艺可用于制造高性能阴极。其他潜在的应用包括但不限于燃料电池的防交叉膜、超级电容器的电极、用于恶劣环境的传感器的感测表面、用于风力涡轮机的除冰和防冰表面以及用于废水净化的膜。这个I-Corps团队项目将有助于根据汽车锂电池制造商对拟议创新的潜在商业化的反应和见解来确定市场价值。如果成功，开发的技术可以授权给汽车LIB制造商作为高性能和低成本的阳极制造工艺，或者可以开始一家小型定制制造公司，为中小型LIB制造商提供基于C-MNP的阳极作为定制电池解决方案。

Existing lithium-ion battery (LIB) technologies have serious cost and performance limitations that hinder the efficient use of renewable energy sources and the rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Despite manufacturing demand for LIBs with greater power and increased specific energy density with longer runtimes, a stronger emphasis is being placed on the reduction of overall manufacturing cost in the new product development initiatives. Currently, the fabrication steps contribute to the overall LIB pack cost of $400-600 /kWh, which must still be reduced by 3-4x to be competitive with a conventional fuel tank in order to take its place in the widespread commercialization of HEVs, PHEVs and EVs. A tremendous effort is needed to reduce the processing cost, material cost, and amount of needed material to meet this goal. A novel carbon structure ? Carbon Micro/Nano Pillars (C-MNP) was invented by University of Massachusetts Lowell as the promising anode material for LIBs. The C-MNP anode based LIB demonstrates significant improvement in specific energy. Moreover, the new anode manufacturing process is well suitable for mass production and is compatible with existing battery manufacturing process offering to significantly reduce the investment for new battery manufacturing. The developed technology can provide automotive LIB manufacturers with a high performance and low cost anode manufacturing process, which will accelerate the widespread commercialization of electric vehicles. The proposed study will also contribute to a fundamental understanding of NIL technology, polymer carbonization, ion diffusion, and charge-surface interactions. Furthermore, the developed C-MNP structure and manufacturing process can be used for manufacturing of high performance cathode. Other potential applications include but are not limited to, crossover-proof membrane of fuel cells, electrodes of super capacitors, sensing surface of sensors for harsh environment, de- and anti-icing surfaces for wind turbines, and membrane for waste water purification. This I-Corps Teams project will help determine the market value based on the responses and insights of the automotive LIB manufacturers for the potential commercialization of proposed innovation. If successful, the developed technology could be licensed to automotive LIB manufacturers as a high performance and low cost anode manufacturing process or a small custom manufacturing company could be started to provide C-MNP based anodes to small/midsized LIB manufacturers as custom battery solutions.