Construction of High Energy Density Batteries

Higher energy density batteries are required in order to increase vehicle range and facilitate adoption. A significant amount of research has been devoted to developing new materials with increased capacity and performance. In order to minimize the cell weight, new cell design techniques are also required that minimize the mass fraction of the inactive components. The Phase I effort will demonstrate the ability to construct cells offering a ~30% increase in cell energy density as compared to cells built with current components and techniques. Two improvements will be made to realize these gains. The fundamental cell construction process will be altered by combining together a novel current collector architecture and composite separator. Also a commercially available cathode material offering higher capacity will be integrated together with an electrode formulation technique that maximizes the active material percentage. During the Phase I, the novel cathode electrode and cell architecture will be developed. Testing will demonstrate the increased performance of the cathode and pouch cells produced by the proposed methods. Higher energy density Ah cells will be produced by integrating together each of the proposed components using techniques that can be scaled for mass production. These efforts will highlight the ability to scale the relevant techniques as required for wide-scale adoption. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits: The developed techniques will allow the design of cells offering higher energy densities at the lower costs required for use in electric vehicles. This will reduce the normalized cost of powertrain systems, enabling widespread adoption by the consumer vehicle market.