Applications include lithium batteries for wearable and mobile devices, electric vehicles, robots, and energy storage systems
The ChemSEI-Linker Battery.
ITRI today introduced ChemSEI-Linker, a composite material, paste and linking material applied to lithium battery electrodes, that increases battery life up to 70 percent and makes lithium batteries easier to recycle. In technical terms, ChemSEI-Linker is an artificial nanoscale solid electrolyte interface of unique composition and structure that stabilizes lithium battery electrodes.
ChemSEI-Linker covers lithium battery electrodes and protects them from a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer that forms on electrodes during the discharge/charge process. ChemSEI-Linker modifies the destructive SEI layer on electrodes and eliminates battery degradation that the SEI layer causes, thus preserving the battery, increasing its life, maintaining high energy, and enabling high safety, high voltage endurance, low cost, and fast charging and discharging. Normally, the SEI layer accelerates battery aging, reduces discharge/charge cycles, and adds steps and cost to recycling due to cracks that it creates on electrodes.
In an electric-vehicle application such as a Tesla Model S, the use of ChemSEI-Linker could increase its range by 15 percent and extend the number of charge-discharge cycles by 70 percent. It would also reduce battery cost, which is currently more than 40 percent of the overall vehicle cost, by decreasing the number of required batteries.
ChemSEI-Linker not only reduces battery-recycling costs but also improves safety. Because the ChemSEI-Linker layer protects the active electrode material, the charge-discharge cycle does not produce microcracks. Since the intrinsic structure of the active electrode material is undamaged, a manufacturer can extract the material and reuse it directly. Conventional electrodes, when recycled, must be turned into lithium carbonate and various metals by intermediate physical and metallurgical recycling processes. ChemSEI-Linker eliminates this need for regeneration of electrode material and streamlines recycling operations and reduces costs. ChemSEI-Linker also improves battery safety, as batteries equipped with ChemSEI-Linker pass nail-penetration tests.
“Air pollution caused by fossil fuel-driven vehicles has been recognized since the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference passed the Paris Agreement as a global challenge urgently requiring solutions. Nations worldwide are actively developing industries and products related to electric vehicles, such as safe, high-capacity, high-power, long-life, and low-cost lithium-ion batteries. Service life, energy density, power density, capacity, and safety are the most crucial technological challenges for practical batteries. However, the current technology for large-scale lithium-ion battery production lacks adequate technical maturity, and is too expensive. Thus, numerous factories produce batteries with limited functionality, small capacity, and insufficient endurance. ITRI developed ChemSEI-Linker to address environmental concerns and improve the performance, recyclability, and safety of lithium batteries,” said Dr. Jing-Pin Pan, Chief Technology Officer of ITRI’s Material and Chemical Research Laboratories.
ChemSEI-Linker includes a self-forming chemical solid electrolyte interface modification technology (ChemSEI) and an electrode paste with a linker (Chemlinkbat paste), integrated into a unique, multifunctional architecture. It combines in-situ organic hyperbranched polymer material with silane-type linkers, electro-conductive additives (graphite, carbon nanotubes, metallic flakes or fibers) and conductive metallic ion inorganic structural materials. These integrated technologies enable the design and development of battery electrodes called Chemlinkbat electrodes, which are integral to a lithium-ion battery that features high capacity, long service life, high safety, and high voltage endurance.
ChemSEI-Linker is currently a finalist for the R&D 100 Awards in the United States.