Advanced Battery Materials and Synthesis Methods

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This research program will explore newly discovered breakthroughs in battery materials synthesis made in Dr. Obrovac's laboratory. New dry synthesis methods enabling the production battery-grade materials in large amounts with lower cost raw materials, and with no waste and ~100% yields will be explored. This is in contrast to the current production methods that utilize high cost, highly refined raw materials, and produce large amounts of waste water and waste solids. Research will be conducted to utilize these new methods to make commercial-quality materials and in scaling them up for evaluation in commercial format Li-ion batteries. This research has the potential of making batteries with greatly reduced cost and lower environmental impact than today's Li-ion cells. These low cost and low environmental impact methods also enable the creation of battery materials more advanced than today's materials, including particles having precisely controlled internal structure and composition modulation, particle coatings to protect the particles from degradation, and particles having high energy density nanoparticles embedded within their structure. This synthesis flexibility allows researchers to specifically design highly engineered particles with internal chemistries to enable high energy density and long lifetimes. Such materials will be scaled-up for evaluation in commercial format Li-ion batteries. Materials resulting from this research program have the potential to significantly lower battery cost (> 30% cost reduction) and environmental impact, while providing a 15-20% increase in battery energy storage and in lifetime.