It’s no secret that the batteries in electric vehicles still have some issues that need to be worked out, before they can be considered a viable option to replace fossil fuel burning vehicles. Currently, they take a long time to charge, the charge doesn’t last long enough for the vehicle to travel long distances, and they don’t allow drivers to quickly accelerate.
At the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering researchers have redesigned the component materials of the battery in an environmentally friendly way to solve some of these problems.
By creating nanoparticles with a controlled shape, they believe smaller, more powerful and energy efficient batteries can be built. By modifying the size and shape of battery components, they aim to reduce charge times as well.
“This is a critical, fundamental step in improving the efficiency of these batteries,” said David Kisailus, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering and lead researcher on the project.
The redesigned batteries could also be used for municipal energy storage, including energy generated by the sun and wind, rather than only electric cars.
Kisailus, who is also the Winston Chung Endowed Professor in Energy Innovation, and Jianxin Zhu, a Ph.D. student working with Kisailus, were the lead authors of the current paper “Solvothermal Synthesis, Development and Performance of LiFePO4 Nanostructures” in the journal Crystal Growth & Design, which contains the team’s initial findings.
Other authors included: Joseph Fiore, Dongsheng Li, Nichola Kinsinger, and Qianqian Wang, all of whom formerly worked with Kisailus; Elaine DiMasi, of Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Juchen Guo, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at UC Riverside.
The researchers in Kisailus’ Biomimetics and Nanostructured Materials Lab set out to improve the efficiency of Lithium-ion batteries by targeting one of the material components of the battery, the cathode.
Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), one type of cathode, has been used in electric vehicles because of its low cost, low toxicity, thermal and chemical stability. However, its commercial potential is limited because it has poor electronic conductivity and lithium ions are not very mobile within it.
Several synthetic methods have been utilized to overcome these deficiencies by controlling particle growth. Here, Kisailus and his team used a solvothermal synthetic method, essentially placing reactants into a container and heating them up under pressure, as in the case of a pressure cooker.
Kisailus, Zhu and their team used a mixture of solvents to control the size, shape, and crystallinity of the particles and then carefully monitored how the lithium iron phosphate was formed. By doing this, they were able to d etermine the relationship between the nanostructures they formed and their performance in batteries.
By controlling the size of nanocrystals, which were typically 5,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, within shape-controlled particles of LiFePO4, Kisailus’ team has shown that batteries with more power on demand may be generated.
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