Development of 3D hybrid electrolytes and nanostructured electrodes for scalable manufacturing of new-generation high-energy density solid-state lithium batteries********

锂离子电池(LIB)是一种“看不见的”技术，它使移动电子产品和最近的电动汽车商业化得以实现。此外，LIBS发现越来越多的人使用太阳能等可再生能源来储存电力。然而，由于使用易燃有机溶剂电解液，这些电池存在固有的安全漏洞，因此最近智能手机、汽车甚至飞机发生了一些壮观的灾难性事件。同时，当前状态的LIBS的能量密度相当有限，以满足更多封装功率的需求。例如，电池组的能量密度决定了电动汽车在需要充电之前的行驶里程。虽然我们可以让这些电池组越来越大，但由于成本和重量/体积的原因，这相当适得其反，因此我们需要开发新一代电池，这些电池将是安全的，具有合理的成本和高能量密度。在这种背景下，人们普遍认为，建造包含固体电解液、锂金属作为负极和高压阴极的固态锂电池是实现这一目标的最佳选择。然而，这种发展受到许多挑战的阻碍，例如设计一种固体电解质，它在室温下具有良好的离子导电性，并且在与锂金属阳极和阴极的界面处具有低电阻。另一大挑战是防止锂金属负极生长所谓的树枝状(某种树状延伸)，这种枝晶可能会渗透到电解液中导致电池失效。但解决这些问题的方式必须允许以具有竞争力的成本进行可扩展的制造。为此，我们的团队与世界领先的LiB研发公司魁北克水电公司合作，提议设计和开发一种新的复合电解液，该电解液由填充了电化学稳定的导电聚合物的多孔陶瓷骨架组成，并与新型纳米工程阳极和高压阴极连接。拟议的研究构成了一种具有巨大创新潜力的原创性方法，可以在一个快速增长的市场中实现重大技术突破，促进先进制造活动。

Li-ion batteries (LIBs) are the "invisible" technology that enabled the tremendous proliferation of mobile electronics and more recently the commercialization of electric vehicles. Additionally, LIBs find increasing use in storage of electricity generated from intermitting renewable sources like solar. These batteries however suffer from an inherent safety vulnerability due to the use of flammable organic solvent electrolytes hence some recent spectacular catastrophic incidents with smart phones, cars and even airplanes. At the same time the energy density of current state LIBs is rather limited to meet the demand for more packaged power. It is the energy density of a battery pack for example that determines the driving range of an electric car before it requires recharging. While we can make these battery packs bigger and bigger this is rather counterproductive because of cost and weight/volume hence we need to develop new generation batteries that will be safe and with high energy density at reasonable cost. In this context, it is widely accepted that building solid-state lithium batteries incorporating a solid electrolyte, Li metal as anode, and a high-voltage cathode by far offers the best option to achieve this goal. Such development however is hampered by a number of challenges as are the design of a solid electrolyte that can have good ionic conductivity at room-T and low resistance at the interface with the Li metal anode and the cathode. Another big challenge is to prevent the Li metal anode for growing so-called dendrites (sort of tree-like extensions) that can lead to battery failure by penetrating through the electrolyte. But solving these problems has to be done in a way that allows for scalable manufacturing at competitive cost. To this end our team in collaboration with Hydro-Quebec, a world leader in LIB R&D, proposes to design and develop a new composite electrolyte made of a porous ceramic framework filled with electrochemically stable conducting polymer and interfaced with a novel nano engineered anode and a high-voltage cathode. The proposed research constitutes an original approach with great innovative potential for major technological breakthroughs leading to advanced manufacturing activity in a fast growing market.********