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）技术存在严重的成本和性能限制，阻碍了可再生能源的有效利用，阻碍了向电动汽车（ev）、混合动力汽车（hev）和插电式混合动力汽车（phev）的快速过渡。尽管制造业对功率更大、比能量密度更高、运行时间更长的lib有需求，但在新产品开发计划中，更强调的是降低总体制造成本。目前，制造步骤导致LIB电池组的总成本为400-600美元/千瓦时，为了在混合动力汽车、插电式混合动力汽车和电动汽车的广泛商业化中占据一席之地，这一成本仍必须降低3-4倍，才能与传统油箱竞争。为了实现这一目标，需要付出巨大的努力来降低加工成本、材料成本和所需材料的数量。一种新的碳结构？碳微纳米柱（C-MNP）是美国马萨诸塞大学洛厄尔分校（University of Massachusetts Lowell）发明的一种极具潜力的锂离子电池负极材料。C-MNP阳极基LIB的比能有显著提高。此外，新的阳极制造工艺非常适合批量生产，并且与现有的电池制造工艺兼容，可以显着减少新电池制造的投资。该技术可为汽车LIB制造商提供一种高性能、低成本的阳极制造工艺，将加速电动汽车的广泛商业化。提出的研究也将有助于对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高性能阴极的制造。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，恶劣环境传感器的传感表面，风力涡轮机的除冰和防冰表面，以及废水净化膜。这个I-Corps团队项目将根据汽车LIB制造商对拟议创新的潜在商业化的反应和见解，帮助确定市场价值。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，或者小型定制制造公司可以开始为中小型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.