Polymer Precursors for Interfaces, Binders and Adhesives for Ceramic Solid-State Battery Components

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NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The electrification of society mandates the development of safer, high energy density methods of storing chemical energy. One clear objective is the development of all-solid state batteries (ASBs), especially those relying on ceramic electrolytes, as they offer the best potential to realize safe, high energy density storage potentially eliminating many of the short-comings of current state-of-the-art battery systems used world-wide. Because ceramic electrolytes are typically sintered at temperatures that exceed those needed to process anode and cathode materials; the assembly of ASBs requires an approach that leads to well-defined interfaces between components and good mating of surfaces coincident with effective ion transport across the interface without also compromising the individual components. Carefully designed polymers that act as adhesives have been developed that offer all of the requisite properties to serve this purpose. Of further importance, on heating to temperatures well below those used to form the cathode, electrolyte and some anode materials, they form glassy or ceramic interfaces that function as anticipated. Indeed, their performance exceeds similar interfaces produced using high vacuum sputtering methods sometimes by orders of magnitude. The reasons for this behavior are not known and yet offer exceptional potential to realize superior ASBs using lower cost processing methods providing that the basic science behind their behavior can be fully explored. This then is the basis for the project described here. Over the course of the project, up to three graduate students and several undergraduate students will be engaged in research; diversity is a priority in the selection of students. Engagement with local Detroit and Yspilanti schools is an ongoing priority to attract underserved populations to science and engineering careers. Research results will be disseminated via tradi-tional scientific journals, international meetings especially with presentations by students, via workshops (where appropriate) and through the creation of new training videos. If successful, it is anticipated that the approach and methods under development could (i) reduce reliance on scarce elements, and (ii) significantly impact how solid-state batteries are assembled given its potential to simplify the assembly process while also increasing energy densities and greatly improving battery safety compared with state-of-the-art batteries currently used commercially. TECHNICAL DETAILS: Polymer derived ceramics (PDCs), precursors to advanced ceramics, is an area first explored more than 40 years ago. The principles concerning their design, processing and characterization for properties optimization were developed by this group originally for structural ceramics, e.g. SiC and YAG ceramic fibers for ceramic/ceramic composites. More recently these principles were applied to designing and optimizing processing of oxide superconducting fibers. This project extends these principles to develop, optimize and especially establish structure-processing-properties relationships to Li+, Na+ and possibly Mg2+ containing glasses/ceramics. Initial studies show that polymers containing Li, P, O, N, H and Li (LiPON precursors) can be formulated and used as coatings and adhesives for multiple thin film (under 50 um) ceramic electrolyte, cathode and anode components; i.e. LATSP, LLZO, LiA-lOx, LTO, etc. The resulting materials provide Li+ conductivities up to 103x superior to gas phase deposited LiPON. This project focuses on developing a detailed understanding of the stepwise molecular and phase evolution of a set of LiPON-like precursors in an effort to clarify the mechanism(s) whereby the molecular to ceramic transformations enable the unexpected, exceptional ion conducting behavior. One long term goal is to use the anticipated outcomes of these studies to improve the utility of LiAlOx electrolytes to the point where the complex processing needed to produce high quality, thin LATSP and/or LLZO films is no longer a necessary part of the assembly of ASBs thereby resulting in lower cost ASBs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.