Invited Presentation: Microstructured Nanomaterials for Lithium-Ion Battery Anodes

The tremendous success of lithium-ion batteries as power source for portable electronic devices since their first commercialization in 1991, marking a breakthrough in battery technology, has rendered them as the most promising energy storage devices for hybrid and, most likely, fully electric vehicles. However, further improvement in terms of energy and power density is still needed in order to meet the demands of modern society’s transportation requirements.

Particularly with respect to the anode side, recent research activities have shown the great benefit of nanostructuring the active material particles in order to combine high rate performance and large specific capacities for alternative anode materials, especially those undergoing rather large volume changes upon (de-)lithiation. However, nanosized particles suffer several safety, health, and processability issues.

We have recently proposed several composites of carbon and nanomaterials as alternative anodes in lithium-ion batteries. Several examples of micro-structured, insertion, alloying, and conversion-alloying nanomaterials will be presented, showing an enhanced performance compared to “simple” nanoparticles only.