Reduced Temperature Sensitivity in Solid-State Batteries

Solid-state thermal battery with actuated heat engines to improve efficiency and reduce thermal shock compared to conventional molten salt batteries. The battery has an insulated container with a stationary thermal storage medium. Actuated heat engines can move in and out of the container to selectively extract heat from the medium. This allows discharging without large thermal gradients that could damage the medium. The engine positions are varied over time to balance heat extraction. This reduces thermal stresses and enables higher power and capacity compared to fixed engine locations.

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Battery design to improve low-temperature performance without adding thermal insulation. The battery has multiple cells where some cells have higher internal resistance and slower heat transfer compared to others. The cells with higher resistance can operate separately at low temperatures to warm up the environment before connecting in series with the other cells. This allows gradual capacity release without severe polarization or lithium plating in the cells with slower heat transfer. The cells with faster heat transfer can have lower resistance.

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Battery pack design with improved low temperature performance for applications like electric vehicles that operate in cold environments. The pack has multiple cells arranged in a temperature gradient inside the pack. The cells are designed with a secondary active material that provides a lower voltage plateau. The cell with the lowest temperature has the highest proportion of the lower voltage plateau capacity. This allows cells in colder regions to discharge further before reaching cutoff voltage compared to cells in warmer regions. This compensates for the lower capacity at low temperatures. The pack's internal temperature distribution is simulated to determine the cell arrangement.

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Process for preparing argyrodite-type solid-state electrolytes for lithium batteries that involves contacting lithium and phosphorus sources with a solvent-reagent at lower temperatures, like 80-120°C, instead of high temperatures like 400-600°C. This allows forming Li7-xPS6-xYx compounds directly in solution, which can then be collected and further processed into solid-state electrolytes. The solvent contains a lithium salt like LiCl and a polymer like PVP. The lower temperature synthesis enables scalable production of argyrodite electrolytes using earth-abundant elements like phosphorus and chlorine.

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A positive electrode, electrode, and secondary battery design to improve cycle life, discharge rate, and low temperature performance of solid-state batteries. The electrode contains positive electrode active material particles, polymer fibers with 1-100 nm diameter, and inorganic solid particles. The polymer fibers help prevent expansion/contraction of the active material during charge/discharge cycles, reducing resistance and cycle degradation. The inorganic solid particles further enhance cycle life and performance by reducing electrode-electrolyte interface resistance. The composite electrolyte layer between the electrodes contains nanofiber dispersed in an aqueous electrolyte solution.

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Process for making high-performance solid-state lithium-ion batteries with improved energy density, cycle life, and safety compared to liquid electrolyte batteries. The process involves mixing ceramic electrolyte powder with flux materials and heating at lower temperatures to form a dense, lithium-conducting electrolyte. This enables depositing thin-film electrolytes with high ionic conductivity suitable for all-solid-state batteries. The lower processing temperatures avoid issues like phase transformation and sintering. The fluxed powder is shaped and heated again at lower temperatures to densify the electrolyte. The lower temperatures and fluxing step allow forming dense electrolytes without sintering issues when directly depositing ceramic powders at high temperatures.

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A secondary battery with improved cycling life and low temperature performance by using a nonaqueous electrolyte containing chlorine ions and a separator with lithium ion conductivity. The battery has a positive electrode with a halide like CuCl2, FeCl3, or CoCl2 as the active material. The negative electrode can have lithium metal, lithium alloys, or compounds that insert/extract lithium. The nonaqueous electrolyte contains an ionic liquid with chlorine anions. The separator allows lithium ion transfer. This combination provides better cycling and low temp performance compared to conventional batteries with aqueous electrolytes.

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An all-solid-state battery system that maintains uniform pressure inside the battery during charging and discharging to prevent cell expansion and contraction issues. The system uses a closed chamber filled with pressurizing fluid to apply isostatic pressure to all cells. A state detector monitors battery conditions. A controller adjusts temperature and fluid flow rates to keep pressure within a range based on cell state. This prevents volume changes from affecting cell pressurization.

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All solid-state battery module with temperature and charge state dependent pressure control to stabilize performance. The battery module has cells sandwiched between pressure plates. A controller adjusts the pressure force based on the battery temperature and state of charge. This allows optimizing internal resistance for charge and discharge efficiency across temperature and charge levels.

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Battery pack for electric vehicles with improved cold weather performance by balancing discharge power in inner and outer areas. The pack uses a mix of battery cells with different chemistries to reduce temperature-related discharge power differences. The inner area has mostly conventional cells, while the outer area has cells with added pseudocapacitance structures. This compensates for temperature-dependent power loss in the outer cells. The inner cells have fewer pseudocapacitance structures since they already have higher temperatures.

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Battery design with a separator and electrolyte composition that provides both high low-temperature cycling and high high-temperature cycling and storage performance. The separator has a double-sided heterogeneous coating with binders having different particle sizes. The anode and cathode surfaces face the smaller particle size coating, while the electrolyte contains a high percentage (10-70%) of a linear carboxylate compound like methyl propionate. This combination enables improved cycling at both extremes compared to conventional designs.

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Carbonate precursor for high-nickel, low-cobalt lithium-ion batteries with improved electrochemical performance. The precursor has a sandwich structure with an inner core and outer shell layer. The inner core has a composition of Ni0.75-0.92Mn0.01-0.15(CO3)x1 and the outer shell has Ni0.70-0.92Mn0.01-0.15(CO3)x2. This sandwich structure allows lithium ions to penetrate through the shell to reach the core during sintering, avoiding cation mixing and local structure collapse in high-nickel materials. The precursor has narrow particle size distribution, good fluidity, and can be prepared in ammonia-free conditions. The sandwich precursor allows complete transformation of high-nickel materials at lower temperatures

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Battery insulation structure that reduces the influence of external temperature on battery performance in both low and high temperature environments. The structure uses a double-walled insulating container with an inner and outer wall. The battery is placed between the walls, spaced away from them. This creates decompression spaces between the walls. This insulation design prevents temperature transfer between the battery and external environment. The decompression spaces also allow the battery to expand/contract without damaging the container walls. Additional features like heat exchange panels, fluid supply/discharge pipes, and concave caps for cable/pipe penetrations further enhance temperature regulation.

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All-solid-state lithium-ion batteries with improved stability and performance using a specific sulfide material as the solid electrolyte. The batteries have a lithium-sulfur-nitrogen (LSN) compound, Li9S3N, as the solid electrolyte. This material provides better stability against electrode materials compared to traditional oxide electrolytes, and has higher conductivity than sulfides like Li2S. The Li9S3N electrolyte is sandwiched between the anode and cathode to form a solid-state battery with improved lifespan and safety compared to liquid electrolyte batteries. The Li9S3N coating on the anode also protects it from reaction with the electrolyte.

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System to prevent lithium plating in battery cells during charging at low temperatures and fast charging by heating the cells directly. It uses carbon nanotube sheets sandwiched between the cells and foam layers. When cell temperature drops below a threshold, a controller sends current through the nanotube sheets to heat the cells. This prevents plating during charging at low temps or fast charging. The nanotube sheets are positioned on the cell faces opposite the cooling plate. The controller can adjust current levels based on temperature ranges.

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Control method to prevent uneven resistance in solid state batteries with layered cathode-anode-electrolyte stack. The method involves actively controlling the temperature distribution across the battery plane to reduce resistance variation between center and edge regions. This mitigates local overcharge/discharge issues caused by pressure differences due to expansion/contraction of the anode. The temperature control is achieved by differentiating center vs edge temperatures to balance resistance. This allows avoiding the need for heavy-duty pressure-uniformizing restraints that increase cost and weight.

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Solid electrolyte for all-solid-state lithium batteries with improved ionic conductivity over a wide temperature range compared to conventional sulfide-based solid electrolytes. The electrolyte contains lithium sulfide, diphosphorus pentasulfide, nickel sulfide, and lithium halide. The composition allows forming a crystalline phase with high ionic conductivity over a wider temperature range compared to conventional sulfide electrolytes.

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Solid catholyte material for solid-state batteries with improved ionic conductivity to allow higher mass loading of active material, faster charge/discharge, and wider temperature range compared to traditional solid electrolytes. The catholyte contains lithium, germanium, phosphorus, sulfur, and oxygen in a specific ratio. The oxygen level is 1:2 or less compared to sulfur to form LGPSO or LSPSO. This composition improves conductivity without adding carbon for electronic conductivity. The catholyte is confined between active material regions in the cathode to prevent reaction. The confinement prevents sulfur loss. A protective material over the catholyte maintains sulfur. The catholyte has a nanocrystalline or amorphous structure.

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Solid battery design with improved characteristics and reliability for applications like electric vehicles, wearables, tools, and electronics. The battery has layers like positive electrode, negative electrode, solid electrolyte, current collector, insulator, and protection. The key innovation is that each layer contains a specific glassy material with a melting point of 500°C or less. The total glassy content in each layer is 10-60 vol%. This balance prevents excessive thermal expansion mismatch during sintering and avoids cracking, warping, or internal shorting. The glassy electrolyte allows room temperature operation.

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A manufacturing process for high-performance, all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries with improved energy density and safety. The process involves depositing thin films of lithium-conducting ceramic electrolytes using a low-temperature, fluxed powder method. The ceramic electrolyte powder is mixed with flux materials at temperatures below 400°C to form a fluxed powder. This fluxed powder is shaped and heated below 1100°C to densify the electrolyte. The low-temperature processing enables thin-film deposition and avoids the high temperatures needed for solid-state reactions. The fluxes aid in densification without melting the ceramic electrolyte. The resulting dense lithium-conducting ceramic electrolyte has improved ionic conductivity for all-solid-state batteries.

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