Nanoscale Cathode Materials for High Capacity Li Ion Batteries

Lithium ion batteries suffer from low specific capacity and capacity fade during cycling due to a range of causes. The Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) innovation will provide the low cost fabrication of a nanostructured morphology for metal oxide cathodes that is expected to significantly improve their performance. While this process is applicable to most of the candidate cathode metal oxides, PSI will focus on demonstrating the utility of the process with the V2O5 system, which has promising Li intercalation capacities. Achieving these capacities has been inhibited by crystal structure changes that occur during intercalation. The PSI synthesis method uses a V2O5 gel precursor to produce a nanostructured cathode with projected high capacity, and discharge rates. The cathodes produced by the PSI process are expected to exceed the performance of the benchmark LiCoO2 system, at a significantly reduced cost. PSI anticipates cathode gravimetric capacities in excess of 300 Ah/kg, and a capacity fade of less than 10% over 300 cycles based upon improvements in published values for lithium capacity in V2O5. This unique metal oxide production method, coupled with state-of-the-art V2O5 cathode chemistry would provide an enabling technology for rechargeable batteries for long duration space service and exploration vehicles.