Garnet materials for Li secondary batteries and methods of making and using garnet materials

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9806372-B2
Application number	US-201414531929-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 3, 2014
Priority date	Oct 7, 2013
Publication date	Oct 31, 2017
Grant date	Oct 31, 2017

Abstract

Disclosed herein are garnet material compositions, e.g., lithium-stuffed garnets and lithium-stuffed garnets doped with alumina, which are suitable for use as electrolytes and catholytes in solid state battery applications. Also disclosed herein are lithium-stuffed garnet thin films having fine grains therein. Also disclosed herein are methods of making and using lithium-stuffed garnets as catholytes, electrolytes and/or anolytes for all solid state lithium rechargeable batteries. Also disclosed herein are electrochemical devices which incorporate these garnet catholytes, electrolytes and/or anolytes. Also disclosed herein are methods for preparing dense thin (<50 um) free standing membranes of an ionically conducting material for use as a catholyte, electrolyte, and, or, anolyte, in an electrochemical device, a battery component (positive or negative electrode materials), or a complete solid state electrochemical energy storage device. Also disclosed herein are sintering techniques, e.g., for heating and/or field assisted (FAST) sintering, for solid state energy storage devices and the components thereof.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A thin and free standing sintered garnet film, wherein the film thickness is less than 50 μm and greater than 10 nm, wherein the film comprises a garnet characterized by the formula Li x La 3 Zr 2 O 12 •yAl 2 O 3 , wherein x ranges from 5.5 to 9, and y ranges from 0.05 to 1.0, and wherein the film is not adhered or fixed to a substrate.

2. The film of claim 1 , wherein the film has a surface roughness of less than 5 μm.

3. The film of claim 1 , wherein the garnet has a median grain size of between 0.1 μm and 10 μm.

4. The film of claim 1 , wherein the film has an area specific resistance (ASR) of less than 10 Ωcm 2 .

5. The film of claim 1 , wherein the film has an area specific resistance (ASR) of less than 10 Ωcm 2 at 80° C.

6. The film of claim 1 , wherein the carbon content is less than 5 atomic %.

7. The film of claim 1 , wherein the molar ratio of Al 2 O 3 :Li x La 3 Zr 2 O 12 , is 0.35, 0.5, 0.67 or 1.0.

8. The film of claim 1 , wherein the film thickness is about 49 μm.

Assignees

• Quantumscape Corp

Inventors

• Holme Tim
• Donnelly Niall
• Iyer Sriram
• Winoto Adrian
• Singh Mohit
• Hudson Will
• Choi Dong Hee Anna
• Karpenko Oleh
• Kerman Kian

Classifications

• C04B2235/661

  Multi-step sintering · CPC title

• C04B35/64

  Burning or sintering processes (C04B33/32 takes precedence {; powder metallurgy B22F}) · CPC title

• H01M10/0562 Primary

  Solid materials · CPC title

• C04B2235/3227

  Lanthanum oxide or oxide-forming salts thereof · CPC title

• C04B35/65

  Reaction sintering of free metal- or free silicon-containing compositions {(C04B35/573, C04B35/591 take precedence)} · CPC title