Development of light-chargeable lithium ion battery devices

锂离子电池（lib）是各种便携式电子产品（如手机、媒体播放器、平板电脑、笔记本电脑等）空前普及背后的“隐形”技术，消费者对这些电子产品的依赖日益增加。现在，随着我们的社会朝着交通电气化的方向发展，以解决严重的全球气候变化问题，lib正在成为开始为插电式混合动力（PHEV）和电动汽车（EV）提供动力的推动力量。与此同时，lib被要求通过直接存储间歇性产生的电力，在利用太阳能方面发挥关键作用。然而，越来越多的人意识到，我们正在接近我们可以在LIB中存储多少能量的极限，因此在可用的电力上，特别是在便携式设备和电动汽车需要充电之前。这推动了前所未有的研发努力，通过开发新的电池化学物质来改善锂电池的能量和功率特性，其中许多化学物质带来了巨大的安全挑战。在这个项目中，我们采用另一种策略，通过开发可光充电的lib，即太阳能可充电电池，来解决能量密度瓶颈。这项研究是与Hydro-Quebec （HQ）合作进行的，该公司是LIB研发领域的世界领导者，并利用了我们在染料敏化太阳能电池和LIB研究领域的最新进展。更具体地说，我们提出了一种光吸收锂离子阴极（LiFePO4）的设计，并将其发展成为光辅助可充电电池器件。初步结果验证了这一范式转换的概念，现在我们的目标是通过研究和优化纳米结构光电极的性能并将其组装成具有长循环性能的原型来进一步发展。这构成了战略绿色储能领域的高度创新研究，在一个每年数百亿美元的不断增长的市场中，为先进制造活动提供了巨大的增长潜力和经济机会。​

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are the enabling "invisible" technology behind the unprecedented proliferation of all sort of portable electronics such as mobile phones, media players, tablets, laptops etc. to which consumers have come to depend on in ever increasing numbers. Now LIBs are becoming the enabling force that started powering plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and electric vehicles (EV) as our society is moving towards electrification of transportation to address the serious global issue of climate change. At the same time LIBs are called to play a key role in enabling the harnessing of solar energy by allowing direct storage of the intermittingly generated electricity. However, there is growing realization that we are approaching the limit of how much energy we can store in a LIB hence on the available power-especially in the case of portable devices and electric vehicles before it needs to be recharged. This drives an unprecedented R&D effort towards the improvement of the energy and power characteristics of LIBs by developing novel battery chemistries many of which impose formidable safety challenges. In this project we pursue an alternative strategy to address the energy density bottleneck by developing light-chargeable LIBs, i.e. solar-powered rechargeable batteries. This research is undertaken in collaboration with Hydro-Quebec (HQ), a world leader in LIB R&D, and leverages our recent advances in the areas of dye-sensitized solar cell and LIB research. More specifically we propose the design of a photo-absorbing Li-ion cathode (LiFePO4) and its development into light-assisted rechargeable battery device. Preliminary results have provided validation of this paradigm-shifting concept that now we aim to develop further via the study and optimization of the nanostructured photoelectrode's properties and its assembly into a prototype with long cycling performance. This constitutes highly innovative research in the strategic green energy storage field that holds tremendous growth potential and economic opportunity for advanced manufacturing activity in a constantly growing market of many tens of billions annually. ****