10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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High Throughput Screening of Precursor-Solvent Combinations for Flame Aerosol Chemistry to Design Phase Pure Li4Ti5O12 Energy Storage Materials
SUMAN POKHREL, Florian Meirhofer, Haipeng Li, Johannes Birkenstock, Michael Gockeln, Robert Kun, Lutz Mädler, University of Bremen, Faculty of Production Engineering
Abstract Number: 167 Working Group: Materials Synthesis
Abstract The industrial development of lithium-ion-batteries based on advanced energy storage materials such as Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) relies on the phase pure material. Flame aerosol technology for the production of such materials is a key to such synthesis. While the chemistry of the impurity free energy storage material synthesis depends on the choice of precursor-solvent combinations, systematic investigation of lithium and titanium precursors dissolved in five different organic solvents were screened followed by flame aerosol combustion.1,2 The results of the precursor-solvent screening showed rapid stabilization of humidity sensitive precursors in highly combustible organic acids inhibiting prior TiO2 precipitation in the solution. The physicochemical properties of aerosol derived particles were extracted using XRD/Rietveld refinements, thermogravimetric analysis, mass spectrometry and vibrational spectroscopy. The results of the LTO particles obtained from the aerosol combustion of highly miscible precursor-solvent combinations with the absence of prior formation of colloidal particles resulted in ultrafine and single crystalline nature with primary particle diameters ranging 4-9 nm. The flame aerosol combustion of less-stable precursor-solvent combinations inducing prior TiO2 precipitation produced much larger particles and high TiO2 content reducing LTO phase to as low as 34%. The overall results showed direct relationship between the stabilities of the precursor-solvent chemistry on the nanoparticle properties. To study the energy storage capacity, the pure phase LTO particles were coated on the battery substrates using doctor blading technique. The results of the battery performance showed discharge capacity of 146.5mAh/g for 450 cycles at 1C with the charge retention of 85%, revealing high rate and efficient charge reversibility.
References 1. F. Meierhofer, Haipeng Li, M. Gockeln, R. Kun, T. Grieb, A. Rosenauer, U. Fritsching, J. Kiefer, J. Birkenstock, L. Mädler, S. Pokhrel, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2017, 9 (43), 37760–37777. 2. M. Gockeln, S. Pokhrel, F. Meierhofer, J. Glenneberg, M. Schowalter, A. Rosenauer, Udo Fritsching, M. Busse, L. Mädler, R. Kun, J. Power Sources, 2018, 374, 97-106.