Lithium ion battery and battery materials

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10998552-B2
Application number	US-202016928972-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 14, 2020
Priority date	Dec 5, 2017
Publication date	May 4, 2021
Grant date	May 4, 2021

Abstract

In some embodiments, a lithium ion battery includes a first substrate, a cathode, a second substrate, an anode, and an electrolyte. The cathode is arranged on the first substrate and can contain a cathode mixture including LixSy, wherein x is from 0 to 2 and y is from 1 to 8, and a first particulate carbon. The anode is arranged on the second substrate and can contain an anode mixture containing silicon particles, and a second particulate carbon. The electrolyte can contain a solvent and a lithium salt and is arranged between the cathode and the anode. In some embodiments, the first particulate carbon or the second particulate carbon contains carbon aggregates comprising a plurality of carbon nanoparticles, each carbon nanoparticle comprising graphene. In some embodiments, the particulate carbon contains carbon meta particles with mesoporous structures.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A lithium (Li) ion battery, comprising:
a cathode formed of few layer graphene (FLG) sheets defining a three-dimensional (3D) carbon-based multi-modal structure comprising:
a plurality of interconnected channels configured to provide ion transport;
a plurality of functional pores configured to retain elemental sulfur or assist with polysulfide microconfinement; and
a plurality of aggregates formed from two or more FLG sheets sintered together and configured to provide electric conduction between contact points of the two or more FLG sheets; and

an electroactive material including any one or more of elemental sulfur or lithium sulfide (Li 2 S) infiltrated into any one or more of the plurality of functional pores or the plurality of interconnected channels of the 3D carbon-based multi-modal structure.

2. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first substrate, wherein the cathode is disposed on the first substrate.

3. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein the polysulfide includes Li x S y , wherein x is from 0 to 2 and y is from 1 to 8.

4. The Li ion battery of claim 2 , further comprising:
a second substrate positioned opposite to the first substrate, wherein the first or the second substrate includes any one or more of metal foil, carbon foam, metal foam, carbon paper, carbon fibers, carbon nanofibers, carbon cloth, or particulate carbon.

5. The Li ion battery of claim 4 , further comprising:
an anode disposed on the second substrate, wherein the anode includes the three-dimensional (3D) carbon-based multi-modal structure.

6. The Li ion battery of claim 5 , wherein the anode further comprises silicon-containing materials including any one or more of an elemental silicon or a lithium and silicon containing material.

7. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein the FLG sheets comprise up to 15 layers of graphene.

8. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the aggregates comprises more than 99% carbon.

9. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein a median dimension of each of the aggregates ranges between approximately 0.1 microns and approximately 50 microns.

10. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein a median surface area of each of the aggregates is between approximately 10 m 2 /g and approximately 300 m 2 /g when measured via a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method using nitrogen as an adsorbate.

11. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the aggregates has an electrical conductivity between approximately 500 S/m and approximately 20,000 S/m.

12. The Li ion battery of claim 1 , wherein the cathode further comprises a binder.

13. A lithium (Li) ion battery, comprising:
an anode formed of few layer graphene (FLG) sheets defining a three-dimensional (3D) carbon-based bi-modal structure comprising:
a plurality of interconnected channels configured to provide ion transport; and
a plurality of aggregates formed from two or more FLG sheets sintered together and configured to provide electric conduction between contact points of the two or more FLG sheets; and
an electroactive material including a silicon (Si) containing material configured to form a lithium-silicon (Li—Si) compound upon exposure to Li.

14. The Li ion battery of claim 13 , wherein the anode further comprises any one or more of graphene oxide (GO), a polymeric material, or a binder.

15. A method of producing a lithium (Li) battery electrode, the method comprising:
forming aggregates of graphene sheets from a carbon-containing vapor flow stream independent of a seed particle;
defining an interconnected network of three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical mesoporous structures based on the aggregates, the interconnected network configured to retain one or more electroactive electrode materials; and
depositing the aggregates onto an electrically conductive current collector.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
infiltrating lithium-containing material into the aggregates, the lithium-containing material configured to provide electric conduction throughout the interconnected network.

17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising:
intercalating Li obtained from the lithium-containing material between the graphene sheets within any one or more of the aggregates.

18. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
incorporating polymeric artificial solid-electrolyte interfaces (SEIs) into the aggregates.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the SEIs include any one or more of a cyclized polyacrylonitrile conductive binder, a carbonized polyacrylonitrile conductive binder or an acrylonitrile monomer precursor solution.

20. The method of claim 15 , further comprising:
slurry casting the aggregates of graphene sheets onto a copper foil.

Assignees

• Lyten Inc

Inventors

• Lanning Bruce
• Stowell Michael W
• Anzelmo Bryce H
• Gibbs George Clayton
• Singh Shreeyukta
• Ghezelbash Hossein-Ali
• Hanumantha Prashanth Jampani
• Cook Daniel
• Tanner David

Classifications

• H01M50/414

  Synthetic resins, e.g. thermoplastics or thermosetting resins · CPC title

• H01M2004/021

  Physical characteristics, e.g. porosity, surface area · CPC title

• H01M10/0565

  Polymeric materials, e.g. gel-type or solid-type · CPC title

• H01M4/625 Primary

  Carbon or graphite · CPC title

• H01M4/60

  of organic compounds · CPC title