Project Description
The developing market for electric vehicle, grid-level storage, mobile device, and autonomous machines including drones and advanced robotics has the harsh demand for the batteries, which should have more safe, cost-effective, high-energy-density and longer-lasting properties. Among all energy storage devices, all solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) are potential candidates to match these requires and further solve the primary problems faced by traditional lithium ion batteries with liquid electrolytes, including flammable, unstable solid-electrolyte interphase formation, poor cycling performance and low energy density. Adding inorganic ceramic fillers can be a valuable method to aid the dissociation of lithium salt, decease the crystallinity and increase the cation transference number. Crosslinked polymer can be an easy way to suppress the crystallization, prevent the Li dendrite and accommodate volume changes. Compared with pure solid organic polymer electrolytes (SPEs), composite with inorganic ceramic fillers can increase ionic conductivity with 1~2 orders of magnitudes. In this project, in contrast to simply adding single inorganic ceramic or crosslinked polymer in SPE, we will develop a highly reliable and safe solid state battery using hybrid crosslinked solid electrolyte. Two major research tasks are described as:
1. Develop novel nanosized uniformly halide contained sulfide-based inorganic SSE with different halide dopant and amount;
2. Examine and validate the cell-level battery performance via a series of electrochemical tests.
Tasks and Responsibilites
The student will participate the experimental work in designing novel electrolyte and all process of making batteries. The student will fully be involved in electrode making, battery assembly and electrochemical property and battery cycling analysis. In parallel, the student is also expected to join some sample characterizations at UWM. The student will attend the group meeting and other activities in the group.