Designing EV Batteries with Lithium-Metal Anodes

Negative electrode for lithium metal batteries with improved cycle life and reduced volumetric change during charging. The negative electrode has a protective layer on the lithium metal surface with particles sizes between 1-100 microns. The protective layer has a Young's modulus of 106 Pa or greater. This provides mechanical strength to prevent dendrite growth and volumetric expansion during charging. The protective layer also improves lithium deposition density compared to bare lithium metal electrodes.

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Lithium metal composite electrode material for lithium metal batteries with improved cycle stability and reduced dendrite formation compared to conventional lithium metal electrodes. The composite electrode material has a lithium-containing conductive layer grown in situ on the surfaces of lithium metal particles. This layer isolates the lithium metal from the electrolyte to reduce irreversible reactions and dendrite growth. The layer includes an inorganic lithium compound and lithium alloy. The layer serves as a 3D framework structure that coats the lithium metal particles. This framework reduces volume expansion and dendrite formation during cycling. The composite electrode material is prepared by mixing lithium metal, a metal compound, and conductive carbon, then heat treating to grow the in situ layer.

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A lithium metal negative electrode for lithium-ion batteries that addresses the issues of dendrite formation and interface side reactions. The electrode has a porous carbon layer with pores formed by desorbing adsorbed gas during slurry coating. This creates a 3D pore structure in the carbon layer that prevents dendrite growth and reduces side reactions compared to a smooth carbon layer. The pore structure allows lithium metal to deposit inside the pores instead of on the surface, reducing dendrite formation. The pores also provide a pathway for lithium ion transfer, mitigating side reactions.

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Batteries with improved safety, cycling stability, and energy density by using lithiated carbon-coated lithium metal anodes, sulfurized carbon cathodes, and graphene nanoribbon (GNR) modified separators. The lithiated carbon coating on lithium metal prevents dendrite formation during charging, the sulfurized carbon cathodes have high capacity and reduced polysulfide shuttle, and the GNR-modified separators prevent sulfur migration.

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Controlling battery charging to prevent lithium plating on anode surfaces through a novel voltage-based charging strategy. The approach measures the potential difference between reference and anode terminals in each cell and determines the charging current based on the minimum anode potential. This approach prevents lithium deposition by directly controlling the charging current based on the anode potential, eliminating the need for traditional lithium deposition rate measurement. The strategy ensures optimal charging conditions for each cell while preventing excessive lithium deposition.

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Electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries that enhances cell performance by forming stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) structures on various electrode materials, including graphite, lithium metal, and hybrid electrodes. The electrolyte combines lithium salts, aliphatic sulfone solvents, fluorinated solvents, and an additive of alkene carbonates, specifically vinylene carbonate, to create a stable SEI that supports high-voltage operation and improved power performance at both low and high temperatures.

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Self-supported, porous, 3D, flexible host anode with lithiophilic constituents for lithium-metal secondary batteries that enables fast charging, high cycling stability, and high energy density. The anode has a porosity of at least 70%, thickness between 10-100 μm, and fibers with diameters of 200 nm-40 μm. It contains a primary lithiophilic constituent with dendritic morphology, along with small amounts of additional lithiophilic materials. The open porosity allows rapid lithium intercalation/deintercalation, preventing dendrite formation and mossy lithium. The fibrous structure enables fast diffusion of lithium ions and reduces polarization. The self-supported design eliminates the need for a current collector fo

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Anode material for lithium secondary batteries that improves cycle life. The anode is made of an aluminum alloy containing specific elements like carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and phosphorus, as well as strontium, sodium, antimony, calcium, tellurium, barium, lithium, and potassium. The ratio of the mass of these elements to the total aluminum alloy mass is tightly controlled. The alloy composition and element ratios allow the aluminum anode to better tolerate the volume expansion and contraction during lithium ion cycling without degrading the aluminum crystal structure. This improves cycle retention compared to standard aluminum anodes.

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Conductive polymer-based lithium anodes with enhanced electron transport for lithium-ion batteries. The anode comprises a conductive polymer layer with anionic functional groups formed on the collector surface, where the polymer is a polythiophene-based polymer. The anode active material layer on the collector surface is made of carbon-based materials. The conductive polymer layer provides superior electron transport properties compared to conventional polymers, while the anode active material layer enhances the lithium metal anode's SEI stability. The combination enables lithium-ion cells with significantly improved coulombic efficiency through enhanced electron transport and reduced SEI formation.

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An anode material for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries that improves dispersion of metal particles in the anode layer to prevent aggregation and improve cycle life. The anode material is a metal-carbon composite where the metal particles are dispersed and complexed within the carbon matrix. This prevents particle agglomeration compared to blending metal and carbon powders. The dispersed metal-carbon composite provides uniform current distribution in the anode layer during charging/discharging to mitigate dendrite formation and improve cycle stability.

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Method to produce partially reacted silicon layers for lithium batteries with controlled lithium intercalation capacity. The method involves depositing a thin layer of silicon on a substrate, followed by accelerated annealing to partially react the silicon with the substrate metal. This process is repeated multiple times to build up a multi-stratum structure of partially reacted silicon. By controlling the annealing conditions and adding metal to each layer, the resulting anode has a gradual transition from silicon to silicide with high capacity silicon near the surface and stable adhesion near the substrate.

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Solid-state lithium battery electrolyte material with high ionic conductivity and compatibility with high voltage cathodes and lithium metal anodes. The electrolyte is a sulfide-based material with a composition of Li, T, X, and A where T is a Group 13 or 14 element, X is a halogen or BH4, and A is S, Se, or N. The material can have glass ceramic and crystalline phases with specific X-ray diffraction peaks. The electrolyte synthesis involves milling and heating precursor compositions to create the final sulfide glass, which can then crystallize into the desired phases.

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All-solid-state lithium ion battery with improved cycle life and reduced dendrite growth for higher capacity and safety. The battery uses an optimized composition and structure for the anode active material layer. The anode layer contains lithium as the active material mixed with amorphous carbon in a weight ratio of 1:3 to 1:1. This ratio enhances adhesion between the lithium and carbon to prevent lithium dendrites from growing through the solid electrolyte. The anode also has a low sheet resistance below 0.5 milliohms-centimeters to further suppress dendrite formation.

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Electrolytes for lithium-metal batteries that improve safety and cycle life. The electrolytes contain acetamide-based solvents like dimethyltrifluoroacetamide (DTA) instead of conventional carbonate or ether solvents. The acetamide solvents have wide voltage windows, stability, and low flammability. They also enable high salt concentrations to form solid electrolyte interphases on lithium metal anodes. This improves anode passivation and reduces dendrite growth compared to carbonate electrolytes. The acetamide electrolytes show better safety, longer cycle life, and lower flammability versus conventional electrolytes for lithium-metal batteries.

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Negative electrode current collector for lithium metal batteries that promotes uniform lithium plating to improve battery performance and stability. The collector has a copper surface with a specific ratio of (110) and (100) crystal planes. This ratio is at least 50%. By heat treating a preliminary copper collector in a hydrogen-argon gas mixture, the desired crystal plane ratio is achieved. The modified collector enables easy lithium nucleation during battery cycling, preventing dendrite formation and improving efficiency, cycle life, and stability compared to conventional copper collectors.

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Lithium-free battery design to improve lifetime and energy density compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries. The lithium-free battery uses a negative electrode made by alloying lithium with a metal substrate like magnesium, calcium, or aluminum during charging. This creates a lithium-metal alloy layer on the substrate instead of a pure lithium plating. The thicker alloy layer reduces side reactions and improves lifetime. The thicker alloy also allows more lithium to be stored per area compared to the thinner plating. This compensates for lower capacity of the lithium-free battery compared to lithium-ion. By having higher capacity positive electrode compared to negative, the overall battery has higher areal capacity and energy density.

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Alkali metal electrode treatment agents, electrolytes, electrodes, batteries, and modules for alkali metal secondary batteries to improve battery life and prevent dendrite growth. The treatment agents and electrolytes contain acrylate compounds that polymerize on the electrode surface when contacted with alkali metals. The polymer coating suppresses dendrite growth and separates the electrode layers. The acrylate compounds can also be blended into the electrode itself. The treatment agents, electrolytes, and electrodes can be used in alkali metal secondary batteries like lithium-metal batteries with reduced dendrite formation and improved cycling life.

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Batteries with improved performance, durability, and safety for electric vehicles and other applications. The batteries have features like phase change materials, thermally conductive articles, and housing designs that mitigate heat generation and cell expansion during charging/discharging. The phase change materials absorb excess heat from cells, cooling them. Thermally conductive articles align cells and facilitate heat transfer. Uniform pressure distribution is achieved by housing components. These features allow high energy density batteries with reduced deleterious effects of lithium metal cells.

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Nonaqueous electrolyte for lithium-ion batteries that reduces metal dendrite formation and improves battery life when metal foreign matter is present in the battery. The electrolyte contains a thiol compound with a thiol group (-SH) and at least one electron-withdrawing group containing oxygen and/or nitrogen. The thiol compound captures metal ions more efficiently compared to thiols without the electron-withdrawing groups. This prevents metal dissolution and deposition on the negative electrode during charging, reducing dendrite growth and improving battery performance.

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Secondary battery with improved cycling performance and reduced dendrite formation by optimizing the negative electrode design. The battery has a negative electrode plate with a coated region containing a first negative electrode material with lower Ostwald ripening tendency, adjacent to coated regions containing a second negative electrode material with higher Ostwald ripening tendency. This gradient composition prevents dendrite growth at the tab edges by balancing ionic diffusion and avoiding excessive ion concentration differences. The first material can be artificial graphite and the second material can be graphite like natural graphite, hard carbon, or soft carbon.

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