The demand for energy storage in applications such as electric vehicles, consumer electronics and grid storage is ever increasing. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are currently the state-of-art in electrochemical energy storage. The annual EV Li-ion battery demand for sustainable development is projected to grow to up to .7 TWh per year by 2030, a 7x increase compared to the current demand projection. In order to meet this energy demand, we propose to use EGaIn, a liquid metal, as a “self-healing” agent for red phosphorous in anodes to achieve longer cycle lives and higher capacities. Red phosphorous (RP) has been the subject of extensive research due to its relatively low cost compared to other commonly used anode materials in LIB’s, stability in air, low toxicity, and extremely high theoretical capacity for Li+ ions at 2596 mAh g-1. Graphite, a currently commercially used anode material, has roughly a 7x lower capacity of 372 mAh g-1 compared to RP for Li+ ions. RP’s main drawback is that it has a volume expansion of up to 300% during charging. This can cause delamination of the RP from the anode, resulting in capacity fade due to the RP becoming electrically disconnected from the anode. To mitigate this delamination, we propose to use EGaIn to maintain electrical contact with delaminated red P particles. EGaIn has been used as a “self-healing” agent for silicon, another high-capacity anode material in LIB’s, that also suffers from high volume expansion. In our work, we fabricate a composite film electrode comprising EGaIn and RP nanoparticles in a carbon polymer matrix. We perform material characterization of the electrode before and after electrochemical characterization of the electrode. This strategy of using EGaIn in combination with RP may help develop effective approaches for the integration of other high volume expansion active materials in anodes.
The Future of Monovalent Cation Energy Storage: Liquid Metal and Red P
Category
Student Abstract Submission