Battery Materials: Next-Generation & Beyond Lithium Ion

Avicenne Energy has been forecasting technology roadmaps and trends for nearly 30 years. The rechargeable battery market has moved from Lead Acid and NiMH to a majority Lithium-Ion with substantially higher energy density from its time of launch nearly 30 years. There has been a lot of hype over high silicon anodes, lithium metal, semi solid state, solid state and now we are seeing new technologies of sodium ion and Iron/Air. The discussion will cover the advances, technology, and business model changes along with early forecasts for technologies that have made significant progress.

Batteries are a critical technology to succeed the phase out of fossil fuels and accelerate the decarbonization of our society. However, despite the significant progress made in the last decade the current batteries still are too expensive and are not capable of storing enough energy. We need more affordable batteries that need much less critical raw materials for every kWh.
If there is no significant cost reduction and much higher efficiency in the use of raw materials the wider electrification in sectors like passenger cars, heavy duty vehicles, marine or aviation will not happen despite a regulatory framework going in that direction. Simply, only end consumers with high purchasing power will be able to afford eco-friendly and sustainable products.
In that context, if the carbon neutrality ambitions of the society are maintained, the situation will widen social inequalities and set back decades of social and economic progress.

Electrolytes hold the key for enabling various battery chemistries including lithium batteries. Currently, the electrolyte based on using LiPF6 as salt and ethylene carbonate/dimethyl carbonate as solvents have been very successful for applications under normal conditions. However, extreme conditions can arise from using batteries during very cold weather or increasing the charge voltage limit to increase overall energy density. Conventional electrolytes fail under these conditions because they cannot support effective lithium ion transport across the electrolyte and the interphase. Our lab has been working on developing novel electrolyte for extreme conditions by engineering the solvent and the electrolyte additives. Taking advantage of the local synchrotron facility, we have been able to characterize the electrolyte and the interphase with techniques that are beyond the reach of lab-based tools. The obtained insight helps us to better understand the electrolyte and optimize our development. In this talk, I will give two examples of our recent efforts in this direction.

o overcome the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, new battery technologies, such as lithium and beyond lithium metal, are being investigated. However, these solutions often suffer from dendrite growth or surface passivation at the metal anode site. Carbon nanomembranes (CNMs) are an electrically insulting 2D nanomaterial that has shown its ability to conduct lithium ions and promote homogeneous ion deposition when used in conjunction with conventional separators. These properties open the possibility of using CNMs as a promising material to enable metal anodes batteries, not only by modifying the interface of separators but also of metal anodes by acting as an artificial solid electrolyte interface to prevent dendrite growth. We will discuss in this presentation the technical and economic potential of these possibilities of CNMs in next-generation batteries.

Carbon nanotubes have long been seen as an obscure, expensive and laboratory-bound material that is impossible to source in large quantities and notoriously shy about mingling with other materials (dispersion challenges). New manufacturing technologies have been developed that enable the production of carbon nanomaterials on a massive scale. Mass production and new methods for delivering these materials open the door to products that are affordable, safe to handle and easy to use. These developments are moving carbon nanotubes toward becoming an industrial commodity that will be used at scale for highly cost-sensitive applications such as cement additives and battery materials.

All-solid-state thin-film batteries combine the characteristics of solid-state batteries, such as long lifetime, ultra-fast charge/discharge and safety, and can be fabricated by physical vapour deposition (PVD) at industrial scale. The talk will present several recent highlights from Empa, including stable cycling of Li-rich NMC thin-film cathodes, carbon interlayers for anode-free configuration, and thin solid electrolyte separators. At last, we will present a monolithic stacked multi-cell battery fabricated entirely by PVD methods, which could boost specific and areal capacity and enable a new type of ultrafast rechargeable battery.

Niobium-based materials were first identified as candidates for lithium-ion anode active materials in the 1980’s. With the push for the electrification of high duty cycle applications which often exceed the performance requirements of traditional graphite-based, and lithium-titanate (LTO)-based lithium ion batteries, niobium-based materials are once again gaining attention as the anode material of choice for these applications.

Echion Technologies is leading the development of commercially available and viable niobium anode active materials for lithium ion batteries. Echion’s niobium-based anode material, XNO® delivers lithium-ion battery performance highly suited for industrial applications that demand the highest productivity and lowest total cost of ownership. Powered by XNO® means lithium-ion batteries that can safely fast charge in less than 10 minutes, maintain high energy densities even at low temperatures, and deliver high power across a cycle life of more than 10,000 cycles.

This talk shall cover the unique aspects of niobium-based anode materials in general, as well as covering the commercialisation progress of XNO®, including development, time to market, validation by cell manufacturers, and material production scale up to meet the demands of gigafactories worldwide.

Today’s wearables, hearables and other products used in space-constrained applications need a safe, fast-charging microbattery with high volumetric energy (VED) and long cycle life in the 1 milliampere-hour (mAh) to 100 mAh capacity range. This presentation will explain how anode-less solid-state lithium technology now enables the development of rechargeable microbatteries that deliver these benefits when implemented with an architecture and manufacturing approach that supports high-volume applications. The latest architecture and manufacturing approaches have removed previous barriers to solid-state technology’s adoption in microbatteries for powering an estimated one billion products shipped annually. These approaches maximize energy density while enabling end-to-end fabrication and packaging in a conventional cleanroom rather than expensive dry (zero humidity) environment. Additionally, the approaches increase VED through the use of an ultra-thin stainless steel substrate, and diced and vertically stacked packaging layers. This also enables a customizable footprint at a desired capacity, and the use of conventional metal terminals for creating a surface-mountable device that is compatible with low-temperature-reflow assembly processes. Attendees will also learn about the opportunities ahead as anode-less rechargeable solid-state lithium miocrobatteries enter the market and transform how wearable, hearable and other products are designed, manufactured and powered.

Current lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are based on liquid electrolytes and are used in many mobile and stationary applications. However, their optimization potential is diminishing as technology advances - it is expected that this technology will slowly reach its limits in the coming decade. Solid-state batteries (SSBs) using solid electrolytes, which are under development and could reach the market in the coming years, offer the promise of improving several important key performance indicators (KPIs).
The presentation will look at the past and future developments of solid-state batteries and discuss promising SSB cell concepts. Potential advantages and shortcomings in KPIs such as energy density, safety, lifetime, cost and fast-charging capability are compared to the benchmark of liquid electrolyte LIB. Estimations on how the SSB market could grow in a phase of strong LIB production expansion and, finally, the main application scenarios and markets of SSB will be discussed.

From a balance-of-pack perspective it is advantageous for solid-state batteries to have the same operational specifications as those of conventional Li-ion batteries. For example, the additional module hardware required to maintain high stack pressure on solid-state batteries may reduce pack level energy density. With this in mind, GM R&D has developed semi-solid battery technologies that reduce the need for high stack pressure. We will show that our semi-solid test cells delivered a critical current density of 3.0 mA/cm2 at 25 °C and 0.1 MPa, which is nearly double the critical current density of comparable dry test cells cycled at 30x higher stack pressure.

It is critical for the European Battery market to have both secure supply chains and next generation materials to meet the future requirements of performance electronics and eMobility. Currently almost all anode materials are sourced from Asia. Silicon anodes however can be made in Europe, using friendly suppliers and domestic manufacturing. The key is to use supply chains that already exist in Europe. We will leverage large scale manufacturing already used for the EU glass market and copper foil already produced in Germany, to manufacture a 100% silicon anode. This anode can be integrated into existing cell manufacturing and increases energy density of Li-ion batteries by over 30% and enable over 600 15-min fast charging cycles. The EU production of this advanced silicon anode will hit Megawatt scale capacity by 2023, and over 100 Megawatts of manufacturing capacity in 2024.

Ionblox has overcome poor cycling and high swelling associated with Silicon anode based lithium-ion cells. Ionblox has developed large format pouch cells using pre-lithiated silicon anode that exhibit high specific energy, fast charge, high-power, and long cycle life. Our patented pre-lithiated silicon anode when paired with Nickel rich cathode enables Lithium-ion cells to have specific energy from 330 to 400 Wh/Kg. Our Lithium-ion Pouch cells have cycled over 1500 DST cycles following USABC test protocols. Pouch cells exhibit 90% capacity recovery under the standard 15-minute charge test and have cycled 1000 times when cycled at fast charge conditions of 4C charge and 1C discharge. Cell performance has been validated by US national labs in the USABC program.

Incremental improvement in energy density of lithium ion battery have been led by moving toward high Nickel cathode and high capacity artificial and synthetic graphite alongside densified battery designs. In recent years, the view on potential innovation in energy density in lithium ion battery has been shifted to anode particularly to silicon and lithium metal. Silicon active materials or silicon anode itself can be made by different processes with different material designs such as core-shell, yolk-shell, scaffolding, compositing, binder free silicon anode, nanowire grown from pre-formed structure, and direct silicon deposition via PECVD. They all have both positive and negative impacts on battery performances because of different behaviours during lithiation and delithiation. LeydenJar silicon is a 100% silicon anode deposited on Copper foil directly by PECVD, which is unique in that it forms columnar structure of 100% silicon with pores inside and between columns. In the presentation, three topics will be touched upon; recent progresses in battery performance, how the unique features of LeydenJar technologies could have led to overcome the well-known fundamental issues of silicon anode; and how effectively the three technologies, plasma science, battery science, and data science, are fused in LeydenJar technologies.

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Lancaster based, LiNa Energy Ltd is a clean tech company which addresses a rapidly growing need for sustainable and low-cost energy storage. LiNa is commercialising high performance sodium batteries which offer greater safety, sustainability, and lower cost versus lithium-ion. LiNa’s breakthrough battery technology can not only help the world get to net-zero by 2050 but help achieve it sooner.

LiNa’s innovative new storage technology, enables more renewable energy to be used when and where it's needed. Key to LiNa’s innovation is the use of an ultra-thin sodium-conducting ceramic electrolyte rather than the flammable solvent used in conventional batteries – this enables inherently safe performance and greatly increased energy densities. LiNa batteries contains no cobalt or lithium, enabling transparent and ethical supply chains using locally sourced materials and domestic manufacturing. Using abundant raw materials and scalable processes will enable LiNa to manufacture cells for less than $50 / kWh, half of the cost of lithium-ion batteries today.

This presentation will give an introduction to the LiNa cell technology, the fundamental electrochemical reactions, electrode structures and electrolytes. The use case of the technology within the battery energy storage markets and examples of the demonstrations made to date on the development pathway will be presented including results of abuse testing confirming the inherent safety credentials of the technology.

The separator and the current collectors (CCs) constitute two fundamental components of every lithium- ion battery (LIB). While not directly participating in the kinetics of the electrochemistry, these passive components are a principal determinant of the safety, performance, longevity, weight, and volume of a cell. Decreasing their weight or volume within the range where their functionalities are not negatively affected can improve a cell’s gravimetric or volumetric energy and power density. In this presentation, we describe a new approach to enhancing the safety and performance of LIBs of various sizes and chemistries that utilizes two next-generation smart passive components, namely, a metal–polymer composite CC (CCC) and a nanoporous ceramic separator (NPORE®). The CCC is fabricated by coating a 6- μm-thick polymer substrate with a thin (250 nm) layer of copper (Cu) metal on each side. High-density Cu elements (bridges) are also embedded within the substrate in this metallization process. The resulting material exhibits increased conductivity in both in-plane and out-of-plane directions. Functioning as a smart fuse, the CCC prevents additional inrush current from triggering a thermal runaway event that can potentially lead to a dangerous and inextinguishable fire in a cell when its internal temperature exceeds 250°C. Unsusceptible to melting and shrinking (even at very high temperatures), NPORE® is a proprietary, robust ceramic separator equipped with nanopores that further augments inherent cell safety. The combination of the CCC and NPORE® offers an innovative safety solution for LIBs of a wide range of chemistries and form factors.

Silicon anodes provide opportunities for energy-dense chemistries. The use of Si in anodes in commercial liquid electrolyte Li-ion batteries has been slowly but steadily rising in recent years and more interestingly, the same silicon anodes are emerging in solid-state batteries as well.

In this talk we unveil NanoXplore’s proprietary silicon graphene composite anode with excellent electron/ion transport, high reversible capacity, mechanical integrity, and stable cycle life performance. We will show how our patented mechanofusion technique tightly wraps graphene over the surface of Si particles, providing the stability and the conductivity that make such anode active materials a viable solution for large scale battery cell manufacturing, both for commercial Li-ion batteries and the emerging solid-state chemistries.

The future success in producing affordable EVs lies in OEMs' ability to improve battery
performance by getting more silicon into the battery anode. The most efficient silicon solution
will determine the winners of the EV race.
To date, silicon additives in the anode of the EV cells have been too expensive and limited to
small amounts due to technical difficulties linked to breaking and volume changes during
charging and discharging cycles. In addition, silicon surfaces are prone to reacting chemically
with the electrolyte, leading to capacity fading and shorter battery life. Other solutions attempt
to avoid such issues by enclosing the silicon with inactive carbon that contributes no energy
storage and increases first-cycle loss. It also forces the lithium ions to travel through the
inactive materials, increasing ionic resistance.
Building upon over a decade of R&D, OneD’s technology simplifies silicon anodes and is
optimized to enable large-scale manufacturing of high-performance anode materials at a
competitive cost, ensuring compatibility with the processes of current and future EV cell
factories.
The SINANODE technology platform adds silicon nanowires to EV-grade graphite to increase
energy density and charging speed. The shape and surface coatings of the SINANODE silicon
nanowires fused into the graphite particles solve the aforementioned challenges (without
adding inactive material) and keep the silicon accessible to the lithium ions.
The silicon nanowires also reduce the cost of the anodes in EV cells. Silicon can store ten times
more energy than graphite alone and can vastly improve the range, charging speed, and life of
EV batteries, along with lowering the overall cost. SINANODE is the silicon solution to a better
EV battery, improving its performance and lifecycle while reducing the overall size, weight, and
cost of the battery.
SINANODE technology is the silicon solution protected by over 240 patents granted and
available for large-scale manufacturing licenses. The unique technology and business model
reduce costs and risks for OEMs and battery manufacturers.

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In the face of greater demand for advanced battery technology, be it in EVs or energy storage, the necessity for improved technology to meet this demand is ever-looming. Alongside wanting to improve performance we must consider material costs and availability. This talk will cover where we are currently with battery technology, focusing on the EV market status and trends. As well as discussing where the industry is headed and emerging technologies

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Supercapacitors have found their place in many different applications where high power densities, safety and the ability to charge at low temperatures are more important than high energy density. However, they still lack the energy density in order to be used in applications where energy is needed longer than for 30 to 60 seconds.
Lithium Ion batteries are technically a poor choice for charge-discharge events under 10 minutes due to self-heating and the attributed effects on lifetime. This is commonly solved by simply oversizing the battery, resulting in more volume and weight being occupied than needed out of a pure energy content perspective. Nevertheless, Lithium Ion batteries today are the most economical choice today even for charge-discharge events below 5 min, as their overall cost per kWh is low and keeps decreasing with new innovations in both electrochemical and process technology.
The performance of Ultracapacitors and Lithium Ion batteries thus leaves a gap for high power pulse applications with charge-discharge events lasting between 15 seconds and 15 minutes.
Skeleton Technologies has been addressing this performance gap by integrating Supercapacitors with Li-ion batteries as well as by developing a high power battery technology. Both approaches are useful when trying to address high power charge and discharge events with high efficiency while keeping energy density higher than 60 Wh/kg, and provide attractive solutions for weight-, volume-, and cost-efficient energy storage for 15 seconds to 15 min high power applications.
This presentation will delve into the potential of the newly developed “Superbattery” technology, compare it to current Ultracapacitor and LIB technology and the combinations thereof, in addition to outlining different application scenarios in the electrification of on- and off-road applications.
In particular, it will investigate how the power profiles of different applications differ and thus favor either a high average or a high peak power solution. Investigated use cases include mining electrification, board-net peak power smoothing and industrial energy efficiency improvements
Finally, an overall scope of the technology market will be presented.

To enable long range EV’s and electric trucks, technological breakthroughs at the chemistry level are required. These innovations are needed for all aspects of the battery system, but specific attention must be given to the anode and the electrolyte.

One of the main challenges with long-term cycling performance of next generation battery system is the interfacial behavior of the anode and the SSE. These challenges arise from either chemical instability between the anode and the SSE or mechanical stress between the anode and the SSE. These two challenges are accentuated at the anode due to the anode’s low standard electrode potential and because of the large volumetric expansion next generation anodes (like silicon) experience.

If the electrolyte is reactive, inflexible, and penetrable, even the best active anode materials will be worthless. To address these issues, we have developed a novel class of electrolytes that improve operational temperature range, require no stack pressure and can work with next generation Si anodes.

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The vast majority of electrolyte development has focused on liquid-based solvent systems and solid-state ionic conductors. Given the delicate balance of electrochemical stability, ionic conductivity, and safety, new electrolyte development is incredibly challenging but crucial to pushing the boundaries of energy storage. South 8's Liquefied Gas (LiGas) Electrolyte technology offers a unique approach addressing many shortcomings of existing liquid and solid-state electrolytes for lithium batteries. These electrolytes are a platform technology to develop a variety of next-generation high-energy electrode chemistries to achieve >400 Wh/kg and have demonstrated significant safety improvements with the elimination of thermal runaway while maintaining excellent cycle life (>1,000 cycles) and temperature operation (-60 to +60C). With these benefits, South 8's LiGas electrolytes can address an entirely new class of batteries for market applications such as electric vehicles, all-weather grid storage, defense, aerospace, an

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Andreas works as a global Business Development Manager on future applications and markets at Wevo. As a technical expert he coordinates projects and material developments in close cooperation with Wevo’s strong R&D and Applications Department. He joined Wevo in 2010 and worked for many years as Technical Sales Manager for Insulation Solutions. Andreas has a 25 years’ experience in polyurethanes, resins, foams, coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers and worked in various functions as an R&D engineer, applications specialist and product manager at BASF and other resin producers. He holds a diploma in chemical engineering from Reutlingen University.

Presentation Summary:

For the implementation of the energy transition, technologies for storing renewable energy need to be developed further. One solution are redox flow batteries and on the other hand green hydrogen as an energy storage material. Redox flow batteries as well as electrolyser stacks for producing green hydrogen are elaborately constructed electro-chemical devices. In redox flow batteries electrolytes, often based on vanadium, are circulated by means of pumps. The technology is seen as having great potential as a storage system for renewable energy from solar photovoltaic and wind farms or rooftop systems. However, the design of the battery stacks has been a real challenge so far as the aggressive electrolytes may cause stress on the materials.

Potting and sealing compounds from WEVO can withstand these conditions – as demonstrated by a series of tests conducted by the company in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal and the DECHEMA Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.

In this presentation WEVO will present:

- Engineered resin solutions for redox flow batteries The presentation will highlight WEVO’s tailormade and specially developed solutions for sealing and assembling redox flow battery stacks with a focus an All-Vanadium-RFB. New production technologies for the stack assembly are playing a key role in the industrialization and scaling-up of redox flow batteries. Instead of using preformed gaskets and manual assembly of the stack with threaded rods or clamping rings, the use of adhesive joining echniques and liquid formed-in-place gaskets (FIPG) offer new possibilities, design freedom as well as simplified and faster automated production technologies.

Furthermore, the sealing of flow battery stacks and insulating of busbars and other electrical and electronic components are still challenging issues due to the lack of resistant sealant materials. In our search for a solution to these problems, liquid sealants and adhesives have been developed and their chemical resistance in vanadium-containing sulphuric acid-based electrolytes has been examined at different oxidation levels of vanadium.

The presentation will also give practical examples for the use of the tested materials in different applications in the Balance of plant of the RFB (sensors, pumps, flow meters etc.).
- An overview of Wevo’s resin solutions for the Hydrogen Economy:

The presentation will highlight new developments for sealing and adhesive solutions for electrolyser and fuel cell stacks with a focus on newly developed materials with a low Hydrogen permeation coefficient. Furthermore example of applications in the Balance of Plant such as humidifiers and power electronic components will be shown.

This is a very unique technology and we believe that Zinc8 has developed an interesting technology to overcome the challenges associated with metal air batteries. In general, We would like to highlight ZinAir technology as a viable alternative to Li ion and vanadium batteries for long duration storage, especially at utilitu scale when the reactor scaling can be more favourable than Li ion stacking. This is a very novel approach in terms of principle, design, and material set. I am confident that our audience will very much enjoy this

This is a very unique technology and we believe that Zinc8 has developed an interesting technology to overcome the challenges associated with metal air batteries. In general, We would like to highlight ZinAir technology as a viable alternative to Li ion and vanadium batteries for long duration storage, especially at utilitu scale when the reactor scaling can be more favourable than Li ion stacking. This is a very novel approach in terms of principle, design, and material set. I am confident that our audience will very much enjoy this

Based on our unique ML-supported innovation & patent analysis approach, the commercial prospects of various permutations between solid electrolytes (sometimes mixed with a minor amount of liquid) and Si-rich or lithium metal electrodes will be discussed. Each permutation has a different prospective performance / safety / cost profile, which can be compared with requirements of consumer electronics, aerospace, EV and stationary storage applications.