Electrode assembly from floating nanowires for sustainable next generation batteries

Introduction

It is estimated that Europe needs an installed capacity for lithium-ion battery production of 300 GWh/year by 2030. By then, the battery market for electric vehicles alone will be worth $116 billion annually.

Technical Challenges

Amongst many technical challenges in this transition is to develop cost-effective and environmentally sustainable processes to manufacture high silicon (Si) content anodes for the next generation LIBs (3b and 4a).

Advantages of Silicon

Si is more abundant than graphite and can enable higher power batteries with thinner electrodes. Additionally, it can extend the range of EVs by increasing the energy density of the next generation of LIB cells by over 50%.

Proposed Method

ELECTROFLOAT proposes a new method to produce high capacity lithium-ion battery anodes made of nanostructured silicon fabrics with up to 100 w.t% Si content. This method eliminates all solvents, polymers, and mixing steps from anode manufacture.

Project Activities

This project comprises a set of selected R&D activities in key areas to reach TRL7 and start pilot-plant scale-up, focused on:

1. De-risking the manufacturing process.
2. Application of strategies to mitigate capacity fading and increase electrochemical performance under operational conditions.
3. Designing a scale-up roadmap to 1 GWh/a and carrying out a techno-economic analysis to determine projected manufacturing costs and establish an adequate validation-driven scale-up strategy.

Non-Technical Activities

Non-technical activities will be conducted by an Industrialisation Development Team consisting of:

• The Principal Investigator (PI)
• Two external industrialisation advisors
• IMDEAs Technology Transfer officer
• The CEO of Floatech, the newly created spin-off company pursuing commercialization of this technology.