STTR Phase I: Realizing the Untapped Potential of Multielectron Insertion/Extraction Reactions in Lithium Ion Batteries

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) project is the commercialization of a high-capacity energy storage material with potential impact for electrified vehicles, grid-level energy storage, and portable electronic devices. Increased electric vehicle range and grid-level energy storage capacity would lead to greater market penetration of electrified vehicles, renewable energy sources, and batteries, with environmental benefits. This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop a lithium ion intercalation cathode that can reversibly access more than one lithium ion per reduction-oxidation center, boosting energy storage capacity substantially. The problem is that after nearly a decade commercially available lithium ions batteries such as the commercially dominant lithium cobalt oxide and its derivatives are still limited to just one lithium per redox center, which establishes an immutable constraint on performance. In fact, these materials likely represent the ultimate limit for intercalation reactions involving just one lithium. The recently discovered zeta-V2O5 polymorph demonstrates the reversible intercalation of multiple lithium ions per vanadium redox center reaching remarkable capacities without a loss in capacity due to poor structure stability. In fact, zeta-V2O5 demonstrates near zero expansion/contraction during charging and discharging. This project will focus on (1) a high throughput screening of compositional space with the aim of increasing the nominal voltage, (2) iterative coin cell fabrication and characterization to correlate composition to performance, and (3) post-mortem analysis of cell failure. Lithium ion zeta-V2O5 based battery prototypes will demonstrate the highly reversible accessibility of vanadium 5+/4+ and 4+/3+ redox couples, approaching the 440 mAh/g theoretical capacity. 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.