Advanced Battery Materials and Synthesis Methods

该研究项目将探索Obrovac博士实验室在电池材料合成方面的新发现突破。将探索新的干法合成方法，以较低的原材料成本大量生产电池级材料，并且没有浪费和~100%的收率。这与目前使用高成本、高度精炼的原材料、产生大量废水和废固体的生产方法形成鲜明对比。研究人员将利用这些新方法制造商业质量的材料，并将其扩大规模，用于商用锂离子电池的评估。与目前的锂离子电池相比，这项研究有可能使电池成本大大降低，对环境的影响也更小。这些低成本和低环境影响的方法也使电池材料的创造比今天的材料更先进，包括具有精确控制内部结构和成分调制的颗粒，保护颗粒免受降解的颗粒涂层，以及在其结构中嵌入高能量密度纳米颗粒的颗粒。这种合成灵活性使研究人员能够专门设计具有内部化学成分的高度工程化颗粒，以实现高能量密度和长寿命。这些材料将被放大用于商用锂离子电池的评估。该研究项目产生的材料有可能显著降低电池成本（降低30%的成本）和对环境的影响，同时增加15-20%的电池储能和使用寿命。

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.