NICOP - Development and Investigation of Metallurgical-Grade Silicon as a Low-Cost and High-Capacity Anode Material for Li-ion Batteries
Abstract
Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries (LIBs) are the most popular batteries to power everydaymobile devices. The global LIB market is forecasted to reach US$ 14.3 billion by 2020. Significantresearch efforts have been directed toward improving LIBs~ performance. G"raphite, the currentstate-of-the-art anode, has a limiting theoretical capacity of 372 mAhg-1. Recently, silicon (Si) hasattracted" a great deal of attention as an alternative anode material because it can store up to 10times more energy compared to graphite wit"hout any additional weight. This is a very significantboost for military operations.Currently, silicon is mainly produced at a pur""ity of 99.9999% to meet the demand of thesemiconductor industry. However, we hypothesize that silicon with a much lower purity,spe""cifically metallurgical-grade silicon, can be used as an anode material for LIBs becauseparticular metallic impurities can aid in i""ncreasing the electrical conductivity of the silicon anode;thus, achieving a LIB with superior capacity at a much lower cost.Our p"reliminary experimental results show that metallurgical-grade (49%) Si anode iselectrochemically active with a relatively high spec"ific capacity of 614.3 mAhg-1 and a stable cycleup to 10 cycles. Moving forward, we will define the characteristics of the metallur"gical-grade Siand the purity specifications. We will investigate the effect of impurities on the performance oflithium-ion battery. This step is essential in decreasing the processing cost of Si anode whileboosting the battery~s performance. We will also develop an optimized ball-milling process forsynthesizing nanostructured metallurgical-grade Si. The ultimate objective is to demonstrate anexcellent cycle life (>50 cycles) of the metallurgical-grade Si using half-cell configuration (vs. Limetal).The proposed proje"ct is directly responsive to the ONR Focus Area: ~Power and Energy~ todevelop efficient power and energy systems. Dr. Hongtan Liu,"" University of Miami, will be thesole US collaborator. The desired outcomes of this research is 1 journal article and 1 conference"presentation/poster.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Nov 03, 2017
- Source ID
- N629091712189
Entities
People
- Saif Almheiri
Organizations
- Khalifa University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy