TAU joint seminar CUNY Energy Institute

LITHIUM BATTERIES FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY STORAGE

Emanuel Peled

Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Tel-Aviv University, received his Ph.D. degree (Summa cum laude) in physical chemistry from the Hebrew University. He is the inventor and developer of the Solid-Electrolyte-Interphase (SEI) model for nonaqueous alkali-metal batteries. He pioneered the development of several electrochemical systems including: lithium/sulfur battery, nanoporous proton-conducting membrane, a direct methanol fuel cell, a hydrogen tribromide regenerative fuel cell and developed low-cost core-shell nanosize platinum-based catalysts. He supervised more than 70 graduate and post-doctoral students. Emanuel Peled was a co-founder of three energy-related startup companies. He has been awarded Electrochemical Society Battery Division Research, the Landau Research, the International Battery Associations (IBA), the Israel Chemical Society Outstanding Scientist Awards and the Award of Commander of MAFAT (Israel MOD), and the Samson-Prime Ministry Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels and Smart Mobility . He was elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and of the International Society of Electrochemistry.

Electrical-energy storage is becoming an important element of the electricity infrastructure of the future, especially for wind and solar farms. Energy-storage technologies available for large-scale applications are divided into five categories: mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical, and electrochemical. In Israel, the existing energy storage is dominated by pumped hydroelectric systems located in: Gilboa, Cochav Hayarden and Zuk Manara. In 2050, Israel will need 150 – 250 GWh storage (today only 0.3GWh), requiring over 1000 tons of lithium-ion batteries. The cost of high energy storage follows the order: compressed air<pumped hydro<lithium-ion batteries. The requirements for electric-vehicle (EV) batteries are: high volumetric- and gravimetric-energy density, high power, low cost <$100/kWh (preferably< 50), long life (over ten years or 5000 cycles), safe systems, low maintenance, and fast charging (preferably less than half an hour). Lithium-ion batteries are featured with all these demands except for the cost. The lithium-metal/sulfur battery has the lowest cost of materials and the only one that meets the energy-storage goals. Anode-free lithium-metal batteries (AFLMB) are expected to have 20% lower cost of materials in comparison with lithium-ion batteries using the same cathode. Their challenges are cycle life and safety. Recently, with the use of nanotechnology, we were able to increase the cycle life of AFLMBs by 300%. This strategy slows cell drying also produces smoother solid electrolyte interphase (SEI). So far we run (at C/10 and C/5) our AFLMBs for about 2,000 cycles (100% DOD) with no visible internal short.

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TOWARDS SMART FLEXIBLE BATTERIES

Diana Golodnitsky

Professor of Chemistry and The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Chair in Chemistry and Energy Sciences at Tel Aviv University. She received a MSc and PhD (Summa cum laude) from Karpov Physicochemical Scientific Research Institute, Moscow, and State Technological University, Kazan, USSR, where she studied fundamental electrochemistry, and electrodeposition and electroforming of metals and alloys. Her current work is focused on the investigation of mechanisms controlling interfacial energy barriers in composite materials, 3D flexible and free-form-factor printed batteries. Diana Golodnitsky has about 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 19 patents. She is a co-founder, together with Prof. Peled, Prof. Patolsky and Prof. Natan, of three startup companies. Prof. Golodnitsky is a Fellow of Electrochemical Society, a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, the President of Israel Electrochemical Society, and a Board Member of the Israel National Research Centre for Electrochemical Propulsion (INREP).

The focus on shifting towards miniaturized products coupled with the booming demand for consumer electronics are some of the key-driving factors behind the flexible-battery market. In the development of innovative power sources, free from design limitation along with the synthesis of reliable electrochemical materials with well-tuned features, is considered to be the most important technical prerequisite.
A novel approach for the fabrication of flexible free form-factor batteries, which utilizes printing techniques will be presented. These technologies are still at an early stage, and most currently-printed batteries exploit printed electrodes sandwiching self-standing commercial polymer membranes, produced by conventional extrusion or papermaking techniques, followed by soaking in non-aqueous liquid electrolytes. We suggest a novel flexible-battery design and report the initial results of development and characterization of novel 3D printed all-solid-state electrolytes prepared by fused-filament fabrication (FFF). The electrolytes are composed of LiTFSI, polyethylene oxide (PEO), which is a known lithium-ion conductor, and polylactic acid (PLA) for enhanced mechanical properties and high-temperature durability. These results pave the way for a fully printed solid battery, which enables free-form-factor flexible geometries.