This grant supports research to investigate the manufacturing of advanced electrochemical energy storage electrodes, furthering both science and engineering and thereby enhancing national prosperity and security. There is increased demand for electrochemical energy storage systems that can provide both high power and high energy densities for applications ranging from portable electronics to electric vehicles. This type of performance is difficult to achieve with electrodes made via slurry-casting, by far the most common manufacturing process. Nanostructured electrode architectures can achieve high power and high energy densities, as has been widely discussed in the scientific literature. However, these nanostructured electrodes usually require many complex processing steps with unknown reproducibility and scalability. This research project studies manufacturing design principles for the electrodeposition of transition metal oxides onto aligned carbon nanotube fabrics. This new process enables the controllable and scalable fabrication of high-performance nanostructured energy storage electrodes. The fundamental understanding developed as part of this research is applicable to a wide range of oxide-based and electrodeposited energy storage materials, thus benefitting the U.S. economy and society. In addition to training of graduate students, the education plan of the project includes the development of a 'Materials Manufacturing Design Principles' course module, instructions for which will be shared on publicly-accessible websites.
The overarching goal of this research is to develop and understand the manufacturing design principles that yield nanostructured aligned carbon nanotube fabric and transition metal oxide electrochemical energy storage electrodes with high power and high energy densities. Achieving this goal overcomes the technical barriers that are typically faced in the scale-up of nanostructured electrodes and provides a transformative route for energy storage processing with the potential for far-reaching industrial impact. Manufacturing design principles are applied to the nanomaterial synthesis and assembly, specifically, reducing the number of materials and processing steps for predictable assembly, utilizing surface functionalization to enable material self-location and self-adhesion, and enabling modularity. The researchers utilize advanced materials characterization techniques to determine the relationships between processing and electrode architecture, composition, and electrochemical performance. Finite-element modeling is utilized to correlate the electrode microstructure, such as oxide grain size or thickness, with the extent of electrochemical intercalation. The fundamental understanding from this research leads to predictive control over nanostructured energy storage architectures with both high power and high energy densities.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
