I-Corps Teams: A Low Cost and High Performance Anode for Lithium Ion Batteries with Application to Electric Vehicles

University Of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell MA

Investigators

Abstract

Existing lithium-ion battery (LIB) technologies have serious cost and performance limitations that hinder the efficient use of renewable energy sources and the rapid transition to electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Despite manufacturing demand for LIBs with greater power and increased specific energy density with longer runtimes, a stronger emphasis is being placed on the reduction of overall manufacturing cost in the new product development initiatives. Currently, the fabrication steps contribute to the overall LIB pack cost of $400-600 /kWh, which must still be reduced by 3-4x to be competitive with a conventional fuel tank in order to take its place in the widespread commercialization of HEVs, PHEVs and EVs. A tremendous effort is needed to reduce the processing cost, material cost, and amount of needed material to meet this goal. A novel carbon structure ? Carbon Micro/Nano Pillars (C-MNP) was invented by University of Massachusetts Lowell as the promising anode material for LIBs. The C-MNP anode based LIB demonstrates significant improvement in specific energy. Moreover, the new anode manufacturing process is well suitable for mass production and is compatible with existing battery manufacturing process offering to significantly reduce the investment for new battery manufacturing. The developed technology can provide automotive LIB manufacturers with a high performance and low cost anode manufacturing process, which will accelerate the widespread commercialization of electric vehicles. The proposed study will also contribute to a fundamental understanding of NIL technology, polymer carbonization, ion diffusion, and charge-surface interactions. Furthermore, the developed C-MNP structure and manufacturing process can be used for manufacturing of high performance cathode. Other potential applications include but are not limited to, crossover-proof membrane of fuel cells, electrodes of super capacitors, sensing surface of sensors for harsh environment, de- and anti-icing surfaces for wind turbines, and membrane for waste water purification. This I-Corps Teams project will help determine the market value based on the responses and insights of the automotive LIB manufacturers for the potential commercialization of proposed innovation. If successful, the developed technology could be licensed to automotive LIB manufacturers as a high performance and low cost anode manufacturing process or a small custom manufacturing company could be started to provide C-MNP based anodes to small/midsized LIB manufacturers as custom battery solutions.