Technologies and Materials to Enable Advanced Anode and Cathode Materials
Authors: Fitch Brian , Yakovleva Marina , Meiere Scott 
Published: February 2020

The increased adoption of electric vehicle technologies is driving the demand for higher energy density batteries.  Since the lithium ion battery was first commercialized 25 years ago in 1991, significant improvements have been achieved through both battery design and material innovations.  However, even as these past achievements are celebrated, current research and industry targets are focused on higher energy and lower cost batteries.  It is necessary to consider advanced materials on both the cathode and anode sides of the battery to achieve these goals. 

Commercially available electric vehicles have achieved driving ranges in excess of 200 miles (320 km) per charge (1).  This has been made possible in part through the use of high nickel cathode materials.  Nickel-rich layered cathode materials such as LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 (NCA) and nickel-rich LiNixCo(1-x)/2Mn(1-x)/2O2 (NCM) can deliver high specific capacities of over 200 mAh g-1.  However, the issues surrounding synthesis of these materials are well documented (2), (3), (4).  It is established that synthesis of NCA requires use of lithium hydroxide as the lithium precursor.  Additional research efforts have been focused on nickel-rich NCM materials (Ni ≥ 0.6 moles) in an effort to balance high specific capacity with battery safety.  The choice of lithium precursor, LiOH.H2O or Li2CO3, can have a dramatic effect on the performance of these materials.  We will discuss the advantages of using lithium hydroxide on the performance of nickel-rich cathode materials.

On the anode side, silicon-based materials offer the potential for very high energy density (5).  However, fundamental properties of silicon materials are hindering their commercialization (6). Extensive efforts are being undertaken to overcome issues such as loss of electrical contact and conductivity caused by material disintegration due to volume expansion and contraction during cycling, and a lot of progress has been reported (7).  Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that successful commercialization of silicon-based anode materials will require pre-lithiation to overcome the issue of inherent large first cycle irreversible capacity loss.  FMC’s innovative technology and material, Lectro® Max Powder (SLMP®), enables a new high energy density generation of lithium ion batteries by providing an independent source for lithium (8), (9) . Significant research has been directed toward developing stable, deployable SLMP pre-lithiation systems and processes (10), (11).  In our presentation, we will show energy density improvements with SLMP in LIB as well as discuss its use for beyond lithium ion applications (12).

References

Straubel, J. B. "Driving Range for the Model S Family." Tesla Motors, 30 Dec. 2014. Web.

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Kim, M.-H., Shin, H.-S., Shin, D. & Sun, Y.-K., Synthesis and electrochemical properties of Li[Ni0.8Co0.1Mn0.1]O2 and Li[Ni0.8Co0.2]O2 via co-precipitation. Journal of  Power Sources, (2006), 159, p. 1328-1333

Yushin, G. et al., High-performance Lithium-ion Anodes Using a Hierarchical Bottom-up Approach. Nature Materials, 9, (2010), 353-58. <www.nature.com>.

 Koratkar, Nikhil et al., Nanostructured Silicon Anodes for Lithium Ion. Small Journal, 20, (2009), p. 2236-242.

Hui Zhao, Wei Yang, Ruimin Qiao, Chenhui Zhu, Ziyan Zheng, Min Ling, Zhe Jia, Ying Bai, Yanbao Fu, Jinglei Lei, Xiangyun Song,  Vincent Battaglia, Wanli Yang, Phillip Messersmith, and Gao Liu, Conductive polymer binder for high-tap-density nano-silicon material for lithium ion battery negative electrode application. Nano Letters, (2015), 15, p. 7927-7932.

C. R. Jarvis, M.J. Lain, Y. Gao, and M. Yakovleva, J. Power Sources, 146, 331 (2005).

Y. Li, B. Fitch, Electrochem. Commun., 13, (2011) 664.

Guo Ai, Zhihui Wang, Hui Zhao, Wenfeng Mao, Yanbao Fu, Vincent Battaglia, Sergey Lopatin, and Gao Liu, Scalable process for application of stabilized lithium metal powder in Li-ion batteries. Journal of Power Sources, (2016).

Zhihui Wang , Yanbao Fu , Zhengcheng Zhang , Shengwen Yuan , Khalil Amine,Vincent Battaglia , Gao Liu, Application of Stabilized Lithium Metal Powder (SLMP) in graphite anode-A high efficient prelithiation method for lithium-ion batteries, Journal of Power Sources, 260, (2014), 57e61

Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens, Manuel Weinberger, Novel strategies towards the realization of larger lithium sulfur/silicon pouch cells. Electrochimica Acta, Volume 191, 10, February (2016), p. 124–132.

Figure 1