SBIR-STTR Award

The U.S. transportation sector is experiencing a quickening transition to electric mobility. The EV market is projected to grow to over 25 million vehicles by 2030, causing the demand for Li-ion batteries (LiBs) to increase from 160 GWh in 2018 to more than 1.2 TWh in 2030. To achieve these growth rates and displace internal combustion engine vehicles in the mass market, Li-battery costs must fall (<$100/kWh), and performance must improve to alleviate customer concerns over driving range and lifetime. Today’s commercial, state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries for EVs are based on high-energy-density layered oxides such as LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 (NCA) or LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 (NMC), and require cobalt, a metal of limited resources and subject to price speculation. New chemistries that are less reliant on critical materials are necessary to secure the supply chain and sustain rapid electrification of the U.S. transportation sector. There is, therefore, an urgent need for new high-performance cathode materials that use low cost, abundant raw materials. Many next-generation cathode materials, including nickel (Ni)-rich LiNi1-xMn0.5xCo0.5xO2 (NMC with x ? 0.2) layered oxide cathode that has attracted great interest due to its high specific energy, suffer from detrimental electrolyte reactions at high operating voltages from the catalytic activity of nickel at high state-of-charge (SOC). This results in poor cycle life that limits their commercial adoption. In this SBIR/STTR Phase I effort, Nexceris, LLC and The Ohio State University (OSU) propose to demonstrate a novel lithium-ion battery stabilization technology that will improve the cycle life of new cathode chemistries and accelerate their commercial adoption. The technology includes multiple approaches to tailoring the cathode/solid electrolyte interface at either the particle or layer level to improve the stability and Li-ion transport on the cathode surface.

This is a disruptive period for global automakers. Economic, political, and ecological pressures have hastened the global transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) to electric vehicles (EVs). In response, automakers are investing over $300 billion to accelerate the launch of EVs. However, to realize mass-market adoption of EVs, lower-cost batteries with higher energy density are urgently needed. Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are the single most costly component of an EV, sometimes approaching 25 to 30% of the vehicle cost. EV producers have shown profitability, not on the EVs produced, but through other financial means, such as the sale of carbon credits. To achieve profitability of the EV’s themselves, improvements to today’s LiB’s are needed to reduce costs, improve driving range, and reduce dependence on increasingly hard to obtain materials (cobalt). There is, therefore, an urgent need for new high-performance cathode materials that use low-cost, abundant raw materials. Many next-generation cathode materials, including nickel (Ni)-rich LiNi1- xMn0.5xCo0.5xO2 (NMC with x ? 0.2) layered oxide cathode that has attracted great interest due to its high specific energy, suffer from detrimental electrolyte reactions at high operating voltages from the catalytic activity of nickel at high state-of-charge (SOC). This results in poor cycle life that limits their commercial adoption. The technology that Nexceris and The Ohio State University (OSU) are working to develop focuses on the enormous market opportunity for new materials innovations that address these safety and cycle-life challenges that are slowing the roll-out of nickel-rich NMC cathodes. In Phase I Nexceris and OSU demonstrated two extremely promising product concepts that significantly improve the capacity and cycle life of nickel-rich cathodes. In the proposed Phase II effort, the commercial readiness of these product concepts will be advanced, and the performance enhancement demonstrated in large 2-Ah cells.