Battery Electrode Optimization

Advanced energy conversion devices typically rely on composites electrodes made of several materials interacting with one another. Understanding their individual and combined impact on degradation is essential in the pursuit of the best possible performance and safety. In this project we use our expertise in Li-ion batterie diagnosis as well as designs of Experiments (DoE) to optimize formulations and to investigate the importance of process parameters while minimizing resources. Defining new approaches to minimize experiments and time to reach an optimal battery electrode composition is highly beneficial to the field. To this end, we use DoE approach and a mixture design was applied for the first time in open literature to electrode formulation. Consequently, the relationship between electrode composition, microstructure and electrochemical performance was uncovered. In this project, the DoE approach is applied to two types of electrodes: high power electrodes for lithium batteries (ONR funded, in collaboration with the University of Montreal) and sodium intercalation electrodes (DOI funded, in collaboration with Trevi Systems) to investigate the feasibility of desalination batteries. In addition, our expertise in battery degradation was used to help researchers at the Navy Research Laboratory to characterize the impact of local temperature gradients and by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories to investigate the impact of overcharge and depth of discharge.