PFI-TT: Novel Lithium-Ion Batteries with Adaptive Designs for Improved Safety, Range and Payload Capacity

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation-Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is in the development of lithium-ion battery manufacturing and design processes removing the shape limitations of current batteries. Today, lithium ion batteries are limited to regular geometrical shapes like cylinders, discs and cuboids. Designing a battery-around-a-product rather than a product-around-a-battery is novel and will enable the reimagination of future designs of products. The product designer will no longer have to make allowances for additional space in particular shapes nor will the batteries demonstrate decreased power density (and shorter life). The societal need for such 3-dimentional (3D) printed batteries stems from portable mobile applications where there are severe limitations for weight, size and/or space in diverse areas such as medical, transportation, and consumer wearable products. If successful, the project may impact consumer/business products that use batteries and electronics, where some or all of the electrical components could be 3D-printed. The target markets include consumer wearables, medical devices, and defense systems including wearable sensors, free-form solid-state batteries, and energy harvesting devices.The intellectual merit of this novel battery system stems from an interdisciplinary collaboration between polymer scientists and manufacturing experts in 3D printing. The team aims to use novel, patented, solid polymer electrolyte chemistries in scalable technologies focued on freeform 3D printed battery components. As a first commercial segment of interest, battery in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications will be examined. This project will be used to subsequently print layer-by-layer the electrolyte membrane cathodes and anodes over custom 3D surfaces and encapsulate these electrodes to make complete, working, structural battery/body frameworks for UAVs/drones. The goal and scope of the project encompass developing methods of assembling the entire lithium ion battery from start to finish to the freeform design with complex shapes that can eventually be scaled to high-throughput, high-volume, custom-shaped 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.