Developing electrochemical energy storage devices with high energy and power densities as well as long cycle life at an affordable cost still remains a major scientific and technological challenge involving the fundamental chemistry and properties of radically new electrode and electrolyte materials and their scalable manufacturing for cost effectiveness. This award explores the scalable manufacturing of a new class of high-energy battery electrodes that incorporate functional nanostructured polymers with ultrahigh-capacity inorganic particles for high performing next generation lithium-ion batteries. This award research will provide a better fundamental understanding of chemical and electrochemical properties of hybrid inorganic-organic materials, and significantly advance the next generation of energy storage systems that are crucial to the renewable energy future of our society. Moreover, fundamental knowledge and manufacturing strategy gained will be useful for designing other electrochemical devices and systems such as fuel cells, photoelectrochemical cells, and electrochemical sensors. The education and outreach objective is to tightly integrate the renewable energy-centered research efforts and results with graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 education and to globally disseminate both research and education outcomes. The integrated research and education in this project will promote students, active learning and their excitement for sustainable energy research and future engineering career, and increase critically-needed efforts in education and workforce development related to sustainable energy.
New approaches towards the development of novel electrode materials with high capacity, low-cost, long cycle life and the ability to be produced at large scale, are critically needed in order to significantly advance the progress towards high energy/power density next-generation energy storage systems. This project focuses on rational design and scalable solution-based synthesis and device fabrication of a novel hierarchical battery electrode system that synergistically integrate nanostructured conductive polymers with inorganic particles to address fundamental challenges faced by ultrahigh-capacity inorganic electrode materials. The approaches are focused on (i) design and scalable synthesis of hierarchical inorganic-polymer electrodes (HIPE) with tunable structures for greatly enhanced energy storage capabilities, (ii) understanding their electronic and electrochemical properties, as well as studying the critical design issues including scalability and manufacturability, and (iii) fundamental investigation of electrochemical dynamics at the nanoscale hybrid interface through microscopic characterizations and mechanistic simulations. This research aimed from both scientific and engineering perspective will establish a new class of hybrid battery electrode systems for next-generation lithium battery technologies. The expected results will improve the knowledge of structural design at the molecular level for optimized electrochemical properties of these novel materials, and provide a deeper understanding of electrochemical dynamics at the nanoscale hybrid inorganic-organic interface. The partnership of academic researchers with national laboratory and technology company will help focus this fundamental research on practical issues and accelerate the nanomanufacturing scale-up.
