From The Oregon State University
5.23.24
Story By
Steve Lundeberg
541-737-4039
steve.lundeberg@oregonstate.edu
Source:
Xiulei “David” Ji
541-737-6798
david.ji@oregonstate.edu
What if a common element rather than scarce, expensive ones was a key component in electric car batteries?
A collaboration co-led by an Oregon State University chemistry researcher is hoping to spark a green battery revolution by showing that iron instead of cobalt and nickel can be used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries.
The findings, published today in Science Advances, are important for multiple reasons, Oregon State’s Xiulei “David” Ji notes.
Fig. 1. Electrochemical performance of the LSC cathodes.
GCD potential profiles at 30 mA/g of the LSC electrodes of (A) Fe/LiF, (B) Fe/Li3PO4, and (C) IronPF. All GCD cycles are from the 11th cycle, where the composite electrodes have undergone 10 conditioning cycles at 100 mA/g. The initial cycling profiles are shown in fig. S2. (D) CV curves of Fe/LiF, Fe/Li3PO4, and IronPF electrodes at 0.2 mV/s with current normalized on the basis of the mass of the active materials. (E) Cycling performance of IronPF at 100 mA/g. (F) Rate capability of Fe/LiF, Fe/Li3PO4, and IronPF electrodes. (G) Cycling performance of IronPF at 60°C at the current rate of 30 and 100 mA/g.
See the science paper for further instructive material with images.
“We’ve transformed the reactivity of iron metal, the cheapest metal commodity,” he said. “Our electrode can offer a higher energy density than the state-of-the-art cathode materials in electric vehicles. And since we use iron, whose cost can be less than a dollar per kilogram – a small fraction of nickel and cobalt, which are indispensable in current high-energy lithium-ion batteries – the cost of our batteries is potentially much lower.”
At present, the cathode represents 50% of the cost in making a lithium-ion battery cell, Ji said. Beyond economics, iron-based cathodes would allow for greater safety and sustainability, he added.
As more and more lithium-ion batteries are manufactured to electrify the transportation sector, global demand for nickel and cobalt has soared. Ji points out that in a matter of a couple of decades, predicted shortages in nickel and cobalt will put the brakes on battery production as it’s currently done.
In addition, those elements’ energy density is already being extended to its ceiling level – if it were pushed further, oxygen released during charging could cause batteries to ignite – plus cobalt is toxic, meaning it can contaminate ecosystems and water sources if it leaches out of landfills.
Put it all together, Ji said, and it’s easy to understand the global quest for new, more sustainable battery chemistries.
A battery stores power in the form of chemical energy and through reactions converts it to the electrical energy needed to power vehicles as well as cellphones, laptops and many other devices and machines. There are multiple types of batteries, but most of them work the same basic way and contain the same basic components.
A battery consists of two electrodes – the anode and cathode, typically made of different materials – as well as a separator and electrolyte, a chemical medium that allows for the flow of electrical charge. During battery discharge, electrons flow from the anode into an external circuit and then collect at the cathode.
In a lithium-ion battery, as its name suggests, a charge is carried via lithium ions as they move through the electrolyte from the anode to the cathode during discharge, and back again during recharging.
“Our iron-based cathode will not be limited by a shortage of resources,” said Ji, explaining that iron, in addition to being the most common element on Earth as measured by mass, is the fourth-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. “We will not run out of iron till the sun turns into a red giant.”
Ji and collaborators from multiple universities and national laboratories increased the reactivity of iron in their cathode by designing a chemical environment based on a blend of fluorine and phosphate anions – ions that are negatively charged.
The blend, thoroughly mixed as a solid solution, allows for the reversible conversion – meaning the battery can be recharged – of a fine mixture of iron powder, lithium fluoride and lithium phosphate into iron salts.
“We’ve demonstrated that the materials design with anions can break the ceiling of energy density for batteries that are more sustainable and cost less,” Ji said. “We’re not using some more expensive salt in conjunction with iron – just those the battery industry has been using and then iron powder. To put this new cathode in applications, one needs to change nothing else – no new anodes, no new production lines, no new design of the battery. We are just replacing one thing, the cathode.”
Storage efficiency still needs to be improved, Ji said. Right now, not all of the electricity put into the battery during charging is available for use upon discharge. When those improvements are made, and Ji expects they will be, the result will be a battery that works much better than ones currently in use while costing less and being greener.
“If there is investment in this technology, it shouldn’t take long for it to be commercially available,” said Ji, who holds the endowed title of Bert and Emelyn Christensen Professor. “We need the visionaries of the industry to allocate resources to this emerging field. The world can have a cathode industry based on a metal that’s almost free compared to cobalt and nickel. And while you have to work really hard to recycle cobalt and nickel, you don’t even have to recycle iron – it just turns into rust if you let it go.”
The Basic Energy Sciences program of the U.S. Department of Energy funded this research, which was co-led by Tongchao Liu of the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and also included Oregon State’s Mingliang Yu, Min Soo Jung and Sean Sandstrom. Scientists from Vanderbilt University, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory contributed as well.
See the full article here.
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The Oregon State University is a public land-grant research university in Corvallis, Oregon. The university currently offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. Student enrollment averages near 32,000, making it the state’s largest university. Since its founding over 250,000 students have graduated from OSU. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” with an additional, optional designation as a “Community Engagement” university.
The Oregon State University a land-grant university and it also participates in the sea-grant, space-grant and sun-grant research consortia; it is one of only four such universities in the country (The University of Hawai’i-Manoa, Cornell University and The Pennsylvania State University are the only others with similar designations). The Oregon State University consistently ranks as the state’s top earner in research funding.
Research
Research has played a central role in the university’s overall operations for much of its history. Most of The Oregon State University’s research continues at the Corvallis campus, but an increasing number of endeavors are underway at various locations throughout the state and abroad. Research facilities beyond the campus include the John L. Fryer Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory in Corvallis, the Seafood Laboratory in Astoria and the Food Innovation Laboratory in Portland.
The university’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) operates several laboratories, including the Hatfield Marine Science Center and multiple oceanographic research vessels based in Newport. CEOAS is now co-leading the largest ocean science project in U.S. history, the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The OOI features a fleet of undersea gliders at six sites in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans with multiple observation platforms. CEOAS is also leading the design and construction of the next class of ocean-faring research vessels for The National Science Foundation, which will be the largest grant or contract ever received by any Oregon university. The Oregon State University also manages nearly 11,250 acres (4,550 ha) of forest land, including the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education recognizes The Oregon State University as a “comprehensive doctoral with medical/veterinary” university. It is one of three such universities in the Pacific Northwest to be classified in this category. Carnegie also recognizes The Oregon State University as having “very high research activity,” making it the only university in Oregon to attain these combined classifications.
The National Sea Grant College Program was founded in the 1960s. The Oregon State University is one of the original four Sea Grant Colleges selected in 1971.
In 1967 the Radiation Center was constructed at the edge of campus, housing a 1.1 MW TRIGA Mark II Research Reactor. The reactor is equipped to utilize Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for fuel. U.S. News & World Report’s rankings place The Oregon State University very high in the nation in graduate nuclear engineering.
The Oregon State University was one of the early members of the federal Space Grant program. Designated in 1991, the additional grant program made The Oregon State University one of only 13 schools in the United States to serve as a combined Land Grant, Sea Grant and Space Grant university. The Oregon State University is designated as a federal Sun Grant institution. The designation makes The Oregon State University one of only three such universities (the others being Cornell University and The Pennsylvania State University) and the first of two public institutions with all four designations (the other being Penn State).
In 2001, The Oregon State University’s Wave Research Laboratory was designated by The National Science Foundation as a site for tsunami research under the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. The O. H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory is on the edge of the campus and is one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated laboratories for education, research and testing in coastal, ocean and related areas.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences funds two research centers at The Oregon State University. The Environmental Health Sciences Center has been funded since 1969 and the Superfund Research Center has been funded since 2009.
The Oregon State University administers the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, a United States Forest Service facility dedicated to forestry and ecology research. The Andrews Forest is a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve.
The Oregon State University’s Open-Source Lab is a nonprofit founded in 2003 and funded in part by corporate sponsors that include Facebook, Google, and IBM. The organization’s goal is to advance open-source technology, and it hires and trains The Oregon State University students in software development and operations for large-scale IT projects. The lab hosts a number of projects, including a contract with the Linux Foundation.