Method of making a lithium energy storage device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12170353-B2
Application number	US-201916388851-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 18, 2019
Priority date	Jan 2, 2019
Publication date	Dec 17, 2024
Grant date	Dec 17, 2024

Abstract

Making a rechargeable Lithium energy storage device begins by forming one or more trenches in a solid silicon substrate. One or more region interface precursors are deposited in the trench followed by one or more anode materials, one or more solid polymer electrolytes (SPE), and one or more cathode materials. Electrically cycling transforms the battery structures prior to full operation of the battery. Some, or all, of the process steps can be performed while the materials are within the trench, i.e. in-situ.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of making an energy storage device comprising the steps of:
forming one or more trenches in a solid silicon substrate, the silicon substrate having a substrate top and a substrate bottom, the trenches being through the substrate top into the silicon substrate, each trench having a trench bottom, one or more trench sides, and a trench cavity defined by the trench bottom and trench sides with a trench opening area at the substrate top;
depositing region interface precursors on the trench bottom, wherein the region interface precursors include: a Lithium compound, a conductive adhesive, and a doping material;
depositing one or more anode materials in the trench cavity above the region interface precursors;
depositing one or more solid polymer electrolytes (SPE) on the anode materials; and
depositing one or more cathode materials on the SPE.

2. A method, as in claim 1 , where the Lithium compound is any one or more of the following: a Lithium salt, lithium hexafluorophosphate, lithium perchlorate, lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate, lithium fluoride, lithium bromide, lithium phosphate compounds, lithium bromide compounds, lithium iodide compounds, and Lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI).

3. A method, as in claim 2 , where the Lithium compound comprises between 2 to 50% by mass of the region interface precursors.

4. A method, as in claim 1 , where the conductive adhesive is one or more of the following: a polymer, polypyrrol, polythiophene, polyaniline (PANI), and polyphenylene sulfide.

5. A method, as in claim 1 , where the doping material one or more of the following: an acid, an acid comprised of either a Lewis acid or protic acid, camphorsulfonic acid, toluenesulfonic acid, tetraflouroboric acid, and trifluoromethanesulfonimide.

6. A method, as in claim 1 , comprising the further steps of, prior to the depositing of the one or more anode materials in the trench cavity and the depositing of the one or more region interface precursors on the trench bottom:
depositing one or more insulating layers covering the trench sides within the trench cavity and covering the substrate top, thereby forming one or more insulated trench sides and an insulated substrate top; and
removing any of the one or more insulating layers from an active area at the trench bottom.

7. A method, as in claim 1 , where the region interface precursors are deposited by one or more of the following: a casting method, a conformal deposit method, a micro pipette, a nano pipette.

8. A method, as in claim 1 , further comprising the step of heating from 1 to 10 min at between 60 C to 160 C after the regional interface precursors are deposited.

9. A method, as in claim 1 , where the anode materials are deposited by one or more of the following: slurry casting, drop casting, micro pipetting, nano pipetting, and spin coating followed by the steps of:
removing any excess anode material;
drying; and
pressing.

10. A method, as in claim 1 , where the SPE is deposited by one or more of the following: drop casting, micro pipetting, nano pipetting, and spin coating followed by the steps of:
layering or integration of a separator material; and
heating.

11. A method of making an energy storage device comprising the steps of:
forming one or more trenches in a solid silicon substrate, the silicon substrate having a substrate top and a substrate bottom, the trenches being through the substrate top into the silicon substrate, each trench having a trench bottom, one or more trench sides, and a trench cavity defined by the trench bottom and trench sides with a trench opening area at the substrate top;
depositing region interface precursor materials on the trench bottom, wherein the region interface precursors include: a Lithium compound, a conductive adhesive, and a doping material;
depositing one or more anode materials in the trench cavity above the region interface precursor materials;
depositing one or more solid polymer electrolytes (SPE) materials on the anode materials;
depositing one or more cathode materials on the SPE materials; and
electrically cycling the energy storage device by imposing cycles of a varying current through the storage device over one or more cycles.

12. A method, as in claim 11 , where two or more of the deposited materials are mixed together in a mixture and the mixture is deposited in lieu of depositing each of the materials individually.

13. A method, as in claim 11 , where the electrically cycling is of low current magnitude at low voltage to saturate the solid silicon substrate before a Lithium metal layer and an interphase layer are fully formed.

14. A method, as in claim 13 , where the electrically cycling is repeated up to 40 times until the Lithium metal layer and interphase layers are fully formed.

15. A method, as in claim 11 , where the electrically cycling further comprising the steps of:
applying a charge current;
stop applying the current when the upper voltage is between 500 mV and 2.5V;
applying a discharge current in the opposite direction where the discharge current is between 0.5% and 50% of the charge current;
stop discharging when the lower voltage is between 0.010V to 0.030V; and
repeating from 0 to 20 times.

16. A method, as in claim 15 , further comprising the steps of:
applying the charge current again to charge the device;
stop charging when the upper voltage is between 500 mV and 4.0V;
applying a current in the opposite direction where the discharge current is between 0.5% and 75% of the charge current;
stop discharging when the lower voltage between 0.010V to 0.750V; and
repeating 0 to 20 times.

17. A method, as in claim 16 , further comprising the steps of:
applying the charge current again to charge the device;
stop the current charge cycle when the upper voltage is between 500 mV and 5.8V;
applying a current in the opposite direction with a magnitude to discharge the device where the discharge current is between 0.5% and 100% of the charge current; and
stop discharging the cell when the lower voltage is between 0.010V to 1.5V.

18. A method, as in claim 11 , comprising the further steps of, prior to the depositing of the one or more anode materials in the trench cavity and the depositing of the region interface precursors on the trench bottom:
depositing one or more insulating layers covering the trench sides within the trench cavity and covering the substrate top, thereby forming one or more insulated trench sides and an insulated substrate top; and
removing any of the one or more insulating layers from an active area at the trench bottom.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Collins John
• Afzali-Ardakani Ali
• Sadana Devendra K
• Todorov Teodor Krassimirov

Classifications

• H01M10/0585 Primary

  of accumulators having only flat construction elements, i.e. flat positive electrodes, flat negative electrodes and flat separators · CPC title

• H01M10/058

  Construction or manufacture · CPC title

• H01M4/0447

  of complete cells or cells stacks · CPC title

• H01M2300/0082

  Organic polymers · CPC title

• H01M10/0525

  Rocking-chair batteries, i.e. batteries with lithium insertion or intercalation in both electrodes; Lithium-ion batteries · CPC title