Grants and Contracts Details
Description
Project Summary
The objectives of this proposal are to understand and, ultimately, control one of the poorly understood
problems in electrochemical energy storage, namely the coupled mechanical and chemical degradation in
lithium ion batteries. The research is critically important to developing more powerful and longer lasting
lithium ion batteries. As a result of lithium insertion and de-insertion, fracture and decrepitation can occur
which limit the durability of lithium ion batteries. Fracture can also prevent electrode materials from
achieving their theoretically high energy and power densities. Furthermore, fracture of the Solid-
Electrolyte Interphase of a few nanometers thick is believed responsible for the coupled chemicalmechanical
degradation of lithium ion battery electrodes.
Intellectual Merit: Recent collaborative work at the University of Kentucky and General Motors R&D
Center on modeling diffusion-induced stresses in insertion electrodes suggests new opportunities for
systematically exploring the effects of diffusion coefficients, surface reaction rates, bulk and surface
mechanical properties on fracture and decrepitation of insertion electrodes. It also hints the possibility of
linking the state-of-charge, stress-amplitude, and durability of electrodes, thus enabling battery life
prediction and health monitoring. In this proposed work, various assumptions and predictions from the
preliminary modeling work will be systematically examined through novel experiments based on in-situ
charge, mass, and stress measurements using electrochemical quartz crystal oscillators. The formation of
cracks leading to decrepitation will also be studied using ex-situ observations using a unique focused-ionbeam/
secondary-ion-mass-spectrometry system. The findings from the proposed experiments will be
used to further advance the coupled mechanical/chemical degradation models for insertion electrodes.
The proposed work should form the basis for surface engineering approaches to control stresses and
mitigate the coupled mechanical/chemical degradation in insertion electrodes. This work will also help
establish materials selection criteria for high capacity and durable lithium ion batteries. The knowledge
gained from the work will ultimately lead to synthetic control of materials’ architectures at the nanoscale
which will result in transformational breakthroughs to overcome the coupled mechanical/chemical
degradation of insertion electrodes.
Broader impacts: Batteries have, in the past, been the focus of electrochemists, including solid-state
electrochemists, who have made tremendous contributions to the state-of-art battery technologies.
However, recent advances in battery technologies have highlighted the multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary
nature of the field. To take the technology farther will require the advancement of new
knowledge at the intersections of electrochemistry, mechanics of materials, thermal sciences, chemistry,
and physics. The coupled mechanical and chemical degradation of batteries is such an example. The
proposed work will help advance the understanding of coupled phenomena in electrochemistry and
mechanics of materials. It will also help train people with deep knowledge and broad experience at the
confluence of these fields. The proposed research activities on coupled electrochemical/mechanical
phenomena will directly impact a number of critical technological areas that depend on energy storage,
including automotive, aerospace, electronics, and communication. It will also benefit other areas such as
sensors for environmental monitoring and biosensors for medical applications. The proposed research
will help train postdocs and graduate students in an academic-industrial lab setting. A new course will be
developed and offered to students of both Chemical Engineering and Materials Engineering programs in
the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Kentucky. This new course will
be developed jointly with researchers at GM R&D Center. Some of the lectures will be given at GM as
part of its continuing education program. The proposed research will also be integrated into
undergraduate research: undergraduates at UK will have hands-on lab experience through existing and
new courses and an existing Nanoscale Engineering Certificate Degree program. They will have
opportunity to visit and work at GM R&D Center for the project. The in-situ charge, mass, and stress
measurement methods will also be used by some of the projects of on-going NSF IGERT and REU
programs on Engineered Bioactive Interfaces and Devices, especially on electrochemical and mechanical
characterization of novel biomaterials and the interaction of cells with surfaces.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 6/1/10 → 11/30/14 |
Funding
- National Science Foundation: $325,000.00
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