Structure design of silicon anodes for high energy lithium batteries
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- More than two centuries old, battery technology has never attracted so much attention as it is today from all over academia, industry, government, and general public. Its extended application in our daily life, from portable electronic devices, electric vehicles, to power grid storage is driving the urgent need for major breakthroughs, in energy density, cycle life, and cost. One of the materials of choice is silicon. Silicon anodes have an order of magnitude higher capacity than state-of-the-art graphite anodes, providing great promise for use not only in Li-ion, but also in next generation high energy Li-S and Li-O2 batteries. However, Si anodes of conventional structure have very short cycle life, because the volume change of Si upon cycling leads to fracture and unstable interfaces. In this dissertation, I employed nanoscale materials design to overcome these problems, by rationally making accurate void space available inside the structure, and limiting the surfaces that are exposed to the electrolyte. The first-generation "yolk-shell" anode prevents fracture, stabilizes the interface, and significantly extends cycle life at small mass loading. Then I designed a second-generation "pomegranate" anode that has reduced interface side-reaction, increased energy density, and enhanced electrode-level conductivity. This design performs excellently even at mass loading as high as commercial batteries. Moreover, its fabrication is highly scalable. Next, I developed a method that produces the key source material for the above designs, Si nanoparticles, from rice husks, an agricultural byproduct with extremely high annual yield, and low cost. Finally, a prelithiation method has been developed for silicon anodes so that it could be paired with high-energy sulfur cathodes to make a full battery. Such a combination can give almost 400% the energy of state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries, enabling the next generation of battery technology.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Liu, Nian |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Chemistry. |
| Primary advisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- |
| Thesis advisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- |
| Thesis advisor | Dai, Hongjie, 1966- |
| Thesis advisor | Moerner, W. E. (William Esco), 1953- |
| Advisor | Dai, Hongjie, 1966- |
| Advisor | Moerner, W. E. (William Esco), 1953- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Nian Liu. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Chemistry. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Nian Liu
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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