PFI-TT: Paving the way to the commercialization of additives that boost battery performance

PFI-TT：为提高电池性能的添加剂商业化铺平道路

• 批准号: 1940952
• 负责人: Lorenzo Mangolini
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-01 至 2023-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940952&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PFI; TT; Paving; way; commercialization

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnership for Innovation – Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project comes from the development of additives that provide an immediate boost in battery capacity without introducing any changes to their manufacturing scheme. The lack of affordable higher-capacity batteries is recognized as a barrier to the broad utilization of, for instance, electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. Improved batteries are needed to support a transition to a greener and more sustainable society. The development of additives that can be easily integrated in current battery designs will facilitate their implementation and future commercialization, giving them a crucial advantage at a time when the battery market is both rapidly expanding and becoming increasingly competitive. This NSF PFI-TT grant will support technological validation and the development of prototypes for field-testing, both necessary step towards successful commercialization. The PI will leverage both the existing close collaboration with the Entrepreneurial Proof of Concept and Innovation Center (EPIC) and the presence of a large population of students from under-represented minorities at UCR Riverside, an accredited Hispanic Serving Institution, to provide unique training opportunities not only in science and engineering but also in entrepreneurship.The proposed project will target additives based on silicon, which, while having much higher lithiation capacity than broadly utilized graphite, has yet to be adopted by battery manufacturers on a large scale. This is due to both technical (silicon alone has poor stability over many charge-discharge cycles) and economic (silicon can be made stable but this requires complex designs) issues. This project will overcome these limitations. A simple, single-stage carbon coating step enables the integration of silicon powders into graphite-dominant anodes. Careful control of the process parameters allows realizing a high-quality carbon coating, which is crucial for the successful utilization of the additives. By developing a “drop-in” additive, this technology enables an increase in battery capacity without requiring any capital intensive investment for the battery manufacturers. As part of this project, this core technology will be advanced and the results in terms of capacity improvement and cycle stability will be validated by independent testing facilities. By the completion of this project, battery prototypes that incorporate silicon-based additives will be field-tested under real-life conditions.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.

该创新技术转化伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力来自于添加剂的开发，这些添加剂可以在不改变其制造计划的情况下立即提高电池容量。缺乏负担得起的高容量电池被认为是广泛利用电动汽车和可再生能源等的障碍。为了支持向更环保、更可持续的社会过渡，需要改进电池。添加剂的开发可以很容易地集成到当前的电池设计中，这将促进它们的实施和未来的商业化，在电池市场迅速扩张和竞争日益激烈的时候，它们具有至关重要的优势。这项NSF PFI-TT拨款将支持技术验证和现场测试原型的开发，这两者都是成功商业化的必要步骤。PI将利用与创业概念验证和创新中心（EPIC）现有的密切合作，以及加州大学河滨分校（UCR Riverside）（一所经过认证的西班牙裔服务机构）中大量代表性不足的少数民族学生的存在，提供独特的培训机会，不仅在科学和工程方面，而且在创业方面。拟议中的项目将以硅为基础的添加剂为目标，尽管硅的锂化能力比广泛使用的石墨高得多，但尚未被电池制造商大规模采用。这是由于技术（硅在许多充放电循环中稳定性差）和经济（硅可以稳定，但这需要复杂的设计）问题。这个项目将克服这些限制。一个简单的，单阶段的碳涂层步骤使硅粉末集成到石墨为主的阳极。仔细控制工艺参数可以实现高质量的碳涂层，这对于添加剂的成功利用至关重要。通过开发一种“插入式”添加剂，该技术可以在不需要电池制造商进行任何资本密集型投资的情况下增加电池容量。作为该项目的一部分，这一核心技术将得到进一步发展，在产能提高和循环稳定性方面的成果将由独立的测试机构进行验证。该项目完成后，包含硅基添加剂的电池原型将在现实条件下进行现场测试。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Controlled growth of silicon particles via plasma pulsing and their application as battery material

通过等离子体脉冲控制硅颗粒的生长及其作为电池材料的应用

• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6463/ac3867
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
• 作者: Schwan, Joseph;Wagner, Brandon;Kim, Minseok;Mangolini, Lorenzo
• 通讯作者: Mangolini, Lorenzo