Metal deposition methods for forming bimetallic structures, batteries incorporating bipolar current collectors made therefrom, and applications thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10714756-B2
Application number	US-201615349341-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 11, 2016
Priority date	Nov 11, 2016
Publication date	Jul 14, 2020
Grant date	Jul 14, 2020

Abstract

In certain aspects, electrolytic deposition and electroless displacement deposition methods are provided to form bimetallic structures that may be used as a bipolar current collector in a battery or a substrate for forming graphene sheets. In other aspects, bipolar current collectors for lithium-ion based electrochemical cells are provided. The bimetallic current collector may have an aluminum-containing surface and a continuous copper coating. In other aspects, a flexible substrate may be coated with one or more conductive materials, like nickel, copper, graphene, aluminum, alloys, and combinations thereof. The flexible substrate is folded to form a bipolar current collector. New stack assemblies for lithium-ion based batteries incorporating such bipolar current collectors are also provided that can have cells with a tab-free and/or weld-free design.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of forming a bimetallic current collector, the method comprising:
depositing an electrically conductive metal on a surface comprising aluminum to form a continuous metal coating by an electroless displacement deposition process, wherein the electroless displacement deposition is carried out in a medium comprising a chelate, the surface comprising aluminum is pretreated by reacting the surface with a zincate, and the electrically conductive metal is selected from the group consisting of: copper, nickel, and combinations thereof, so as to form the bimetallic current collector having an average thickness of less than or equal to about 25 micrometers.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the surface comprising aluminum is on a substrate selected from the group consisting of: plastic, graphene, aluminum foil, and combinations thereof.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the surface comprising aluminum is an aluminum foil substrate.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the chelate comprises a copper metal organic framework (Cu-MOF).

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the chelate is selected from the group consisting of: ammoniacal copper benzenetricarboxylate MOF (Cu-BTC) solution, ammoniacal NOTT-116 solution, ammoniacal copper NOTT-100 solution, ammoniacal copper MOF74 solution, and combinations thereof.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the continuous metal coating is a copper coating having a thickness of greater than or equal to about 2 monolayers and less than or equal to about 1 micrometer.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising depositing graphene over the continuous metal coating.

8. A method of forming a bipolar current collector for a battery, the method comprising:
depositing a first conductive material selected from the group consisting of: copper, nickel, aluminum, graphene, alloys, and combinations thereof on a first portion of a first surface of a flexible substrate to form a first coating and depositing a second conductive material distinct from the first conductive material that is selected from the group consisting of: nickel, copper, graphene, alloys, and combinations thereof on a second portion of the first surface to form a second coating, wherein the flexible substrate comprises one or more polymeric materials selected from the group consisting of: polyester, polypropylene, polyimide, and combinations thereof and the first portion and the second portion are distinct regions of the first surface; and
folding the flexible substrate so that the first portion of the first surface is exposed and defines a first side, a folded region, and the second portion of the first surface is exposed and defines a second side, wherein the first side defines a first current collector having a first polarity and the second side defines a second current collector having a second polarity opposite to the first polarity so as to form a bipolar current collector.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the depositing the first conductive material and the depositing the second conductive material are independently selected from the group consisting of: electrolytic deposition, electroless displacement deposition, and combinations thereof to form a coating of the material having an average thickness of less than or equal to about 25 micrometers.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the bimetallic current collector has an average thickness of less than or equal to about 20 micrometers.

11. A method of forming a bimetallic current collector, the method comprising:
depositing an electrically conductive metal on a surface comprising aluminum to form a continuous metal coating by an electrolytic deposition process carried out in a liquid medium, wherein the electrically conductive metal is selected from the group consisting of: copper, nickel, and combinations thereof, and the liquid medium comprises water and either:
(i) a copper-containing compound selected from the group consisting of: copper sulfates, copper chlorites, copper cyanide, copper tetraethylenepetamine, ammoniacal copper sulfate, copper pyrophosphate, ammoniacal copper chloride, ammoniacal copper benzenetricarboxylate MOF (Cu-BTC) solution, ammoniacal NOTT-116 solution, ammoniacal copper NOTT-100 solution, ammoniacal copper MOF74 solution, and combinations thereof, or
(ii) a nickel-containing compound selected from the group consisting of: nickel sulfate, nickel chloride, nickel fluoroborate, and combinations thereof,
wherein the copper-containing compound is present in the liquid medium at greater than or equal to about 40 to less than or equal to about 250 g/L or the nickel-containing compound is present in the liquid medium at greater than or equal to about 150 g/L to less than or equal to about 300 g/L and the electrolytic deposition is carried out at a current density of greater than or equal to about 0.005 A/cm 2 to less than or equal to about 0.5 A/cm 2 and a temperature of the liquid medium is greater than or equal to about 20° C. to less than or equal to about 60° C., so as to form the bimetallic current collector having an average thickness of less than or equal to about 10 micrometers.

Assignees

• Gm Global Tech Operations Llc

Inventors

• Dai Fang
• Abd Elhamid Mahmoud H
• Dailly Anne M
• Cai Mei

Classifications

• H01M50/403 Primary

  Manufacturing processes of separators, membranes or diaphragms · CPC title

• C25D3/40

  from cyanide baths {, e.g. with Cu+} · CPC title

• Y02E60/10

  Energy storage using batteries · CPC title

• C25D5/44

  Aluminium · CPC title

• C23C18/54

  Contact plating, i.e. electroless electrochemical plating · CPC title