STTR Phase II: Multi-Electron Intercalation Reactions for High Capacity Lithium Batteries

这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）第二阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是提高电动汽车电池的性能并降低电池的成本。重新发明可充电电池的正极材料非常重要，因为正极是电池中最昂贵的材料，而且通常会限制性能。阴极比其他所有电池材料加起来都贵。这种新型高性能、低成本的钒阴极将用于锂离子电池。钒还受益于高可用性、国内采购和现有的废钒回收能力，以建立一个循环电池生态系统。这种电池可以增加电动汽车的行驶里程，实现快速充电，提高安全性，降低成本。更广泛地说，在消费电子、医疗电子、军事和国防系统以及能源存储方面的广泛应用被设想。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）二期项目旨在开发一种高性能、多电子电池阴极。这种锂离子电池的正极是一种新型隧道结构的钒基材料。商业上可用的电池化学通常仅限于每个插入位点只有一个电子反应，这限制了性能。锂电池需要可逆地实现锂离子的多电子嵌入，以提高重量和体积能量密度。具体来说，拟议的项目将扩大合成方法，以生产多电子钒基阴极，评估多电子阴极与锂金属和/或硅配对的电化学性能，并探索各种电池组件和表面改性，以减轻电解质氧化和过渡金属溶解。该项目还将基于实验设计方法优化电池性能。解决这些技术差距和挑战将导致更先进的多电子袋电池。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。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is to advance the performance and decrease the cost of batteries for applications in electrified vehicles. Reinventing cathode materials of rechargeable batteries is an important because the cathode is the most expensive material in a battery and often performance limiting. Cathodes cost more than all the other battery materials combined. This new class of high performance, low-cost vanadium cathodes will be used in lithium ion batteries. Vanadium also benefits from high availability, domestic sourcing, and existing capacity for the recycling of spent vanadium to establish a circular battery ecosystem. The proposed batteries may benefit electrified vehicles by increasing range, enabling fast charging, improving safety, and reducing cost. More broadly, a wide range of applications in consumer electronics, medical electronics, military and defense systems, and energy storage are envisioned. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project proposes to develop a high performance, multi-electron battery cathode. This lithium ion battery's cathode is a new tunnel structured vanadium based material. Commercially available battery chemistries are often limited to just one electron reaction per intercalation site and this limits performance. Lithium batteries that reversibly enable multi-electron intercalation of lithium ions are needed to improve gravimetric and volumetric energy density. Specifically, the proposed project will scale up the synthetic method to produce multi-electron vanadium based cathodes, evaluate multi-electron cathodes paired with lithium metal and/or silicon for electrochemical performance, and explore various battery components and surface modifications to mitigate oxidation of electrolyte and transition metal dissolution. The project will also optimize battery performance based on a design of experiments approach. Addressing these technical gaps and challenges will lead to more advanced multi-electron pouch cell batteries.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.