PFI-TT: Paving the way to the commercialization of additives that boost battery performance

PFI-TT：为提高电池性能的添加剂商业化铺平道路

• 批准号: 1940952
• 负责人: Lorenzo Mangolini
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-05-01 至 2023-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1940952&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PFI; TT; Paving; way; commercialization

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnership for Innovation – Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project comes from the development of additives that provide an immediate boost in battery capacity without introducing any changes to their manufacturing scheme. The lack of affordable higher-capacity batteries is recognized as a barrier to the broad utilization of, for instance, electric vehicles and renewable energy sources. Improved batteries are needed to support a transition to a greener and more sustainable society. The development of additives that can be easily integrated in current battery designs will facilitate their implementation and future commercialization, giving them a crucial advantage at a time when the battery market is both rapidly expanding and becoming increasingly competitive. This NSF PFI-TT grant will support technological validation and the development of prototypes for field-testing, both necessary step towards successful commercialization. The PI will leverage both the existing close collaboration with the Entrepreneurial Proof of Concept and Innovation Center (EPIC) and the presence of a large population of students from under-represented minorities at UCR Riverside, an accredited Hispanic Serving Institution, to provide unique training opportunities not only in science and engineering but also in entrepreneurship.The proposed project will target additives based on silicon, which, while having much higher lithiation capacity than broadly utilized graphite, has yet to be adopted by battery manufacturers on a large scale. This is due to both technical (silicon alone has poor stability over many charge-discharge cycles) and economic (silicon can be made stable but this requires complex designs) issues. This project will overcome these limitations. A simple, single-stage carbon coating step enables the integration of silicon powders into graphite-dominant anodes. Careful control of the process parameters allows realizing a high-quality carbon coating, which is crucial for the successful utilization of the additives. By developing a “drop-in” additive, this technology enables an increase in battery capacity without requiring any capital intensive investment for the battery manufacturers. As part of this project, this core technology will be advanced and the results in terms of capacity improvement and cycle stability will be validated by independent testing facilities. By the completion of this project, battery prototypes that incorporate silicon-based additives will be field-tested under real-life conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该创新合作伙伴关系 - 技术转化 (PFI-TT) 项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力来自于添加剂的开发，这些添加剂可以立即提高电池容量，而无需对其制造方案进行任何改变。电池被认为是电动汽车和可再生能源等广泛利用的障碍，需要改进电池来支持向更绿色、更可持续的社会过渡，开发可以轻松集成到当前电池中的添加剂。设计将促进其实施和未来NSF PFI-TT 拨款将支持技术验证和现场测试原型的开发，这是成功商业化的必要步骤。 PI 将利用与创业概念验证和创新中心 (EPIC) 现有的密切合作，以及加州大学河滨分校 (UCR Riverside)（一所经过认证的西班牙裔服务机构）大量来自代表性不足的少数族裔的学生，不仅在科学和工程方面，而且在创业方面提供独特的培训机会。拟议的项目将针对基于硅的添加剂，虽然硅的锂容量比广泛使用的石墨高得多，但尚未被电池制造商大规模采用这是由于技术（单独的硅在许多充电-放电循环中稳定性较差）和经济（硅可以变得稳定，但这需要复杂的设计）问题造成的，该项目将克服这些限制。涂层步骤实现了硅的集成仔细控制工艺参数可以实现高质量的碳涂层，这对于添加剂的成功利用至关重要，通过开发“直接”添加剂，该技术可以提高电池的容量。作为该项目的一部分，该核心技术将得到提升，并且在容量提高和循环稳定性方面的结果将由独立的测试设施进行验证。包含硅基添加剂的电池原型将该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Controlled growth of silicon particles via plasma pulsing and their application as battery material

通过等离子体脉冲控制硅颗粒的生长及其作为电池材料的应用

• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6463/ac3867
• 发表时间: 2021-11
• 期刊: Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
• 作者: Schwan, Joseph;Wagner, Brandon;Kim, Minseok;Mangolini, Lorenzo
• 通讯作者: Mangolini, Lorenzo

Critical barriers to the large scale commercialization of silicon-containing batteries

含硅电池大规模商业化的关键障碍

• DOI: 10.1039/d0na00589d
• 发表时间: 2020-10-13
• 期刊: Nanoscale Advances
• 影响因子: 4.7
• 作者: J. Schwan;G. Nava;L. Mangolini
• 通讯作者: L. Mangolini