Insight into alternative battery technologies using 3D configurations, protective coatings, and characterization of resistive properties

Abstract

The omni presence of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have revolutionized the modern world due to this technology's implementation as an energy storage device in smart phones, wearable electronics, and electric vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries are well suited for these applications owing to the light weight of these systems and their ability to store a large amount of charge. For these reasons, LIBs are classified as energy dense systems, which describes the amount of energy a technology can store per unit mass. A battery metric where LIBs struggle in terms of performance is power density, or the amount of power a technology can produce per unit mass. These systems, also, require expensive feedstock materials that are geographically isolated which has profound impacts on economics and supply chain considerations for LIBs. Thus, if rechargeable batteries are to continue to advance, alternative battery configurations and chemistries must be studied. Chapter 1 describes the field of LIBs, in terms of the advantages and disadvantages of this technology. This discussion is followed by brief mentions of some of the champion materials found in the anodes, cathodes, and electrolytes currently implemented in LIBs. The discussion on the champion materials for LIBs also covers the drawbacks of each material, and ways in which future investigations can improve their performance. This is then followed by a section which highlights how alternative battery configurations and chemistries can address some of the inherent disadvantages of the LIBs system. This chapter concludes with a discussion on some important soft skills the author learned during the completion of this degree. Chapter 2 covers the development and advances made in the field of 3D batteries. This chapter begins with an introduction of the 3D battery field and includes a section which discusses the current advances made in the literature. This is then followed by a discussion on the computational advances made in the field of 3D batteries, where there is a critical need to develop digital twins of 3D batteries to better understand the chemo-mechanical dynamics of these complex systems. The following portion of this chapter covers the development of 3D batteries through the lens of critical performance metrics, being power density, energy density, and cyclability and scalability. For 3D batteries, this chapter identified that improvements in energy density is the area where further advances are most needed. Finally, this chapter discuss efforts being made in industry toward the commercialization of these 3D battery systems. Chapter 3 covers an investigation into the fundamental effect of a polymer protective coating, cyclized-polyacrylonitrile (cPAN), on the Na-ion (de)insertion chemistry of antimony-based anodes in sodium-ion batteries (NIBs). This investigation was able to determine that the cPAN coating had the most pronounced effect on the early cycle (cycles 1-10) Na-ion (de)insertion chemistry of the antimony-based anodes. The interfacial resistance was, also, diminished by the presence of the cPAN protective layer which implies that the cPAN helps to facilitate Na-ion transport at the electrode-electrolyte interface. Chapter 4 discusses a practical and beginners' approach to the learning electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) for rechargeable batteries. This chapter begins with a simple deconvolution of the EIS acronym, such that the reader has a deeper understanding of how each component of the acronym combines to create this technique. The chapter continues by discussing how to preform both qualitative and quantitative EIS analyses on rechargeable batteries, and finishes with a discussion on the EIS specifics of rechargeable battery systems. Chapter 5 covers the future areas in which the work presented in Chapter 3 can be extended. In particular this chapter discusses the critical need to quantify the SEI products of a cPAN coated antimony electrode, as early cycle numbers, and ways in which cPAN can be applied to high surface area substrates to ideally formulate a 3D sodium-ion battery.