AABC 2012. LLIBTA Symposium: Large Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Application – Keynote Address

AAB is pleased to welcome Professor Jeff Dahn, recognized worldwide as a distinguished scientist in the field of advanced lithium batteries. His keynote address will explore cell technology for enhanced battery life.

Professor Dahn runs one of the largest university laboratories in the world devoted to the study of materials for advanced batteries and fuel cells and has received the highest ranking of any electrochemist or battery material researcher worldwide for the technological impact of his scientific publications.

A world leader in the development and understanding of carbonaceous materials for use in lithium-ion batteries, Prof. Dahn studies all aspects of Li-Ion cell chemistry, including active electrodes, interfaces, electrolytes and electrolyte additives. In addition to material synthesis and characterization, Prof. Dahn's work covers the stability, cycle life, and safety of materials and cells.

Synthetic activity includes sol-gel, mechanical alloying, magnetron sputtering, and direct solid-state reactions. Characterization techniques include among others in-situ studies in electrochemical cells using x-ray diffraction, small-angle x-ray scattering, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Prof. Dahn's lab has also implemented Combinatorial Materials Science—which allows the synthesis and characterization of hundreds of distinct stoichiometries in a single experiment—in battery materials development.

Prior to his current position, Professor Dahn was a professor at Simon Fraser University and prior to that served as R&D director at NEC/Moli Energy. During that period, he made a significant contribution to the technology of the only major Li-Ion cell producer of the time in North America. Over the past 15 years Dr Dahn has collaborated with 3M, which has commercialized several of his inventions.

Professor Jeff Dahn is the author of over 315 articles in refereed journals and 46 separate inventions with associated patents issued or pending.

Abstract 

Lithium-ion batteries are now being used in electric vehicles. There are four main factors which will determine the success of Li-ion batteries in this application: a) safety; b) cost; c) performance and d) lifetime. Each of the factors is presently the subject of much debate and much R+D. I will only speak about lifetime here. Testing the lifetime of Li-ion batteries for automotive applications under realistic conditions of temperature and number of cycles per day is very time consuming. In fact, such a test should take a decade or more, if the batteries are expected to last a decade in the field. Tests of such duration slow the product improvement cycle immensely. In this lecture, I will discuss how high precision measurements of the coulombic efficiency of Li-ion cells and batteries can be used to predict the relative lifetimes, on the decade-long scale, of these devices in measurements that only take a few weeks. The measurements enable the rapid comparison of technologies using new electrode materials, electrolyte additives and cell designs so that the product improvement cycle can be significantly shortened. I will describe the requirements of the instruments needed to make these measurements and point out that nothing suitable is, as yet, commercially available. There is a major need for such equipment and an associated business opportunity. How can an OEM tell that incoming cells for assembly into Li-ion battery packs for an EV application will, in fact, last for a decade or longer? What non-destructive measurements can be made in a few days or weeks to assure the quality of the cells? I will explain one way this can be done and point out, again, that the required equipment is, as yet, not commercially available.

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