Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies Second Quarter 2012 Technical Highlights

July 17, 2012

The Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) program has issued its second quarterly report of research highlights for Fiscal Year 2012. You can download it from the BATT web site.

The BATT Program is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Vehicle Technologies (OVT) to help develop high-performance rechargeable batteries for use in electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs).

The program is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and funds research groups at Berkeley Lab and several other organizations, including other National Laboratories and universities. The quarterly reports summarize the recent progress of the program participants, organized into separate research tasks.

Highlighted reports this quarter:

Cell Analysis

  • Richardson’s Group uses laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy to deduce the state of charge of the active material through the cross section of the electrode.
  • Liu’s Group demonstrates cycleability of Sn powder with the use of an electronically conductive binder.

Anodes

  • Cui’s Group demonstrates 6000 cycles with hollow nanotubes of Si encapsulated in SiOx.

Cathodes

  • Cabana’s Group demonstrates that the discharge rate of LiNi1/2-xMn3/2+xO4 is higher for disordered materials and independent of x.

Diagnostics

  • Grey’s Group demonstrates that NMR can accurately detect the level of order/disorder between the Ni and Mn in LiNi1/2Mn3/2O4 materials.

Modeling

  • Newman’s Group demonstrates that an SEI formed on graphite at lower voltages is inherently more passivating than an SEI formed at higher voltages.