SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact/commercial potential of this STTR Phase I project is the commercialization of next-generation lithium-ion battery materials and their integration into the current battery manufacturing infrastructure. Specifically, the development of drop-in functionality and roll-to-roll processing pathways for advanced coating technology will demonstrate its potential for facile integration with existing commercial battery production lines. The graphene-based coating innovation also has the potential to accelerate the market adoption rate of novel, high-performance lithium-ion battery materials and advance the current trajectory for energy storage capabilities to meet increasingly rigorous societal demands for electrification (e.g., electric vehicles). In addition, the successful commercialization of this graphene-based technology for a high-value application such as lithium-ion batteries will further validate the commercial potential of graphene and invigorate its growing market. Finally, since the current list of major battery manufacturers is dominated by non-U.S. companies, this proposal presents a clear opportunity for emerging domestic technology to enhance technical competitiveness of the U.S. in the green energy sector through the development of novel energy storage solutions and advanced manufacturing innovations. This STTR Phase I Project proposes research activities that will demonstrate how graphene-based coating technologies can advance to yield powders of emerging cathode materials in large scale with uniform conformal coatings that maximize their performance. The resulting innovation will be a unique nanomaterial-based additive that can be seamlessly integrated into existing manufacturing processes and facilitate commercialization of next-generation lithium-ion batteries in emerging applications from drones to electric vehicles. This development effort concurrently explores the scalability and applicability of the graphene-based coatings as a protective additive solution to address key technical issues facing experimental battery active materials, which have significantly higher theoretical energy density than state-of-the-art but suffer from chemical instability, high cell impedance, and poor packing density issues. The overarching goals of the proposed research activities are to develop: (1) a scalable production approach for a library of novel cathode nanoparticles for high energy density and maximized rate capability; (2) a scalable production method of applying uniform conformal graphene-based coatings on cathode nanoparticles; (3) an optimized slurry and electrode formulation for the nanostructured cathode particles from the combined efforts of objectives (1) and (2), which will guide cell fabrication efforts toward industry-format battery prototypes. 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.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project is to enable improved safety for next generation lithium-ion batteries, used in many applications, such as electronics, electric vehicles, and other specialty applications. With a projected growth over 10% annually over the next decade, the lithium-ion cathode material market is expected to exceed $30 B by 2030, creating a significant commercial potential. This project will develop a coating to improve the durability, capacity, and low-temperature performance of lithium-ion batteries; it will be deployed industrially in a modular and flexible fashion. This STTR Phase II project proposes to develop and validate an industrial manufacturing prototype of a graphene-based coating technology for rapid commercialization of emerging high-performance cathode materials. The resulting innovation will demonstrate the commercial viability of the graphene functionalization to address key technical issues facing the next-generation Ni-rich high energy density cathodes such as chemical instability, narrow operating conditions, and high cell impedance growth. This technology provides a comprehensive solution to precisely target these pain points through integration of nanotechnology with traditional lithium-ion battery systems. The overarching goals of the proposed research activities include (1) development of fully continuous-flow graphene-based coating precursor production; (2) implementation of pilot-scale roll-to-roll graphene-based coating process for Ni-rich cathode microparticles; (3) development and validation of alternate coating pathways for early validation, and (4) pouch cell prototyping efforts for commercial validation of increases in cycle life, chemical stability, and rate and temperature performance. This project will advance the technology for seamless integration into existing battery manufacturing lines.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.