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Development and optimization of 3V class anode free cells

Sanghvi, Neel
(2023)

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Sanghvi_04452200_2023.pdf
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Details

Supervisors
Vlad, Alexandru
Faculty
Ecole polytechnique de Louvain
Degree label
Master [120] : ingénieur civil en chimie et science des matériaux, à finalité spécialisée
Abstract
An exponential rise in battery demand for EV and energy storage system (ESS) applications has exposed the weaknesses of contemporary lithium ion battery (LIB) technology. Conventional LIBs suffer from low specific energies and high manufacturing costs, and currently dominating cathode materials make use of cobalt and nickel which suffer from multiple supply chain issues. Anode free battery (AFB) technology can potentially offer higher specific energies at a lower cost. Current AFBs suffer from low coulombic efficiency (CE) among other issues. This low CE causes a significant loss of active lithium with every cycle. Increasing AFB performance requires either increasing average CE or replenishing the lost active lithium. This project aims to study the optimization of LiFePO4 (LFP) based anode free cells by means of developing a lithium reservoir on the copper anode substrate. The lithium reservoir can be used to replenish the active lithium, and the reservoir will be built using a sacrificial agent. In this work Li4-PTtSA, a conjugated sulfonamide is examined for use as a sacrificial agent. To this end, a LFP - Li4-PTtSA hybrid cathode is fabricated in an inert atmosphere. Modifications in the first cycle of a cell have been reported to have a strong influence on the cycle life. To this end, an ‘intermediate rest step’ has been tested for the first cycle of a lithium copper cell which increases the average CE by increasing the stability of the initial SEI. This has improved the cycle life of the cell by more than 100 %. Lithium half, lithium copper, anode free and powder cells have been used to study the behaviour of LFP, Li4-PTtSA and the copper anode substrate. Galvanostatic cycling has been used for electrochemical characterization. Presence of a lithium reservoir increases the cycle life of an anode free cell by 40 % in the considered case. Li4-PTtSA is concluded to be a potential sacrificial agent for anode free battery optimization.