Background
Recent research in renewable energy and battery technology has shown that traditional lithium-ion batteries face challenges stemming from flammable liquid electrolytes and high manufacturing costs. Anti-perovskites are a class of materials that have been recently explored as viable candidates for solid-state electrolytes (SSEs), as current SSEs face hurdles in both functionality and scalability, limiting the ease of solid-state battery production.
Currently, many of these materials require several high-cost processes to form a functioning SSE; a process which usually involves high-temperature sintering inside of specific atmospheric chambers. Additionally, other solid-state electrolytes have required very high-cost, low throughput processing to manufacture while existing lithium-ion batteries also use flammable and bulky liquid electrolytes, reducing energy density and safety of battery cells. These challenges in SSE manufacturing highlight a gap in existing renewable energy material technologies, which currently fail to simultaneously address scalability and safety while offering low-cost production.
Invention Description
Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a novel material that utilizes lithium oxygen nitrate, a substance within the class of anti-perovskite materials, as a solid-state electrolyte. This material can be formed by simply dissolving lithium oxide and lithium nitrate in ethanol in a 1:1 molar ratio, without requiring any environmental chambers or high temperature sintering. This solution can then be applied as a thin film onto a silicon substrate and then dried at low temperatures to remove the ethanol solvent, creating a film of lithium oxygen nitrate with an ionic conductivity in the range of 10^-5 S/m. Since its manufacturing process uses no sintering or high-temperature processing, this makes it compatible with a range of underlying materials and substrates where almost all existing solid-state electrolytes cannot be used. This novel material is a better candidate for solid-state electrolytes, as it has relatively low manufacturing costs and high ionic conductivity compared to current SSE technology, which has a much slower throughput process.
Potential Applications
- High-energy density battery manufacturing
- Consumer electronic batteries
- Electric vehicle batteries
- Grid-scale energy storage
- Other high-power battery applications
Benefits and Advantages
- Lightweight energy storage
- Low-cost manufacturing
- Renewable energy materials