ELECTRODE MATERIAL AND ENERGY STORAGE APPARATUS

Abstract

An electrode material includes a fine-array porous material. The fine-array porous material includes a plurality of pores having a substantially uniform size of <1000 μm, with a variation of <20%, and comprises a metal such as Ni, Al, Ti, Sn and Mn. The metal fine-array porous electrode material can be surface-treated to form a metal oxide on the surface of the porous electrode material, or be coated with a metal oxide including RuO.sub.2, TaO. An electrical energy storage apparatus, such as a supercapacitor or a lithium battery, containing the fine-array porous electrode material can have significantly improved performances as compared with conventional materials.

Claims

1. An electrode material for use in an electrical energy storage apparatus, comprising a fine-array porous material, wherein: the fine-array porous material comprises a plurality of pores, wherein the plurality of pores have a size of less than about 1000 μm; the size of the plurality of pores is substantially uniform with a variation of less than about 20%; and the fine-array porous material has a porosity of about 40-85%.

2. The electrode material according to claim 1, wherein the electrical energy storage apparatus is a supercapacitor, and the fine-array porous material comprises at least one of Ni, Al, Ti, Sn, Mn, Zr, V, Nb, Ta, W, Cr, Fe, Co, Rh, Ir, Pt, Pd, Cu, Ag, Au, or Ru.

3. The electrode material according to claim 2, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises a metal oxide on surface of the fine-array porous material, and the metal oxide is derived from the metal as used in the fine-array porous material.

4. The electrode material according to claim 2, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises a metal oxide on surface of the fine-array porous material, and the metal oxide comprises at least one of RuO.sub.2, TaO, BaTiO.sub.3, SrTiO.sub.3, PZT, Cu.sub.2O, ZnO, Fe.sub.2O.sub.3, Co.sub.3O.sub.4, SnO.sub.2, V.sub.2O.sub.5, Ni(OH).sub.2, Co(OH).sub.2, or PLZT.

5. The electrode material according to claim 1, wherein the electrical energy storage apparatus is a supercapacitor, and the fine-array porous material comprises at least one of RuO.sub.2, TiO.sub.2, Co.sub.3O.sub.4, SnO.sub.2, V.sub.2O.sub.5, or MnO.sub.2.

6. The electrode material according to claim 2, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises a second material within void space of the plurality of pores.

7. The electrode material according to claim 6, wherein the second material comprises at least one of graphene, graphane, mesocarbon microspheres, petroleum coke, carbon fibers, pyrolytic carbon resin, or LiCoO.sub.2.

8. The electrode material according to claim 2, further comprising a layer of grain-shaped dielectric material at a surface of the fine-array porous material.

9. The electrode material according to claim 8, wherein the dielectric material comprises at least one of Al.sub.2O.sub.3, BaTiO.sub.3, SrTiO.sub.3, Ba.sub.xSr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3, PZT, TaO, Cu.sub.2O, ZnO, Fe.sub.2O.sub.3, SnO.sub.2, Co3O4, V2O5, PLZT, or TiO.sub.2.

10. The electrode material according to claim 1, wherein the electrical energy storage apparatus is a lithium battery, and wherein the fine-array porous material has a composition of a lithiated ternary transition metal oxide selected from Li-MnO.sub.2, LiFePO.sub.4, and wherein the fine-array porous material comprises a conductive polymer selected from PPV, PPY, PAC, PANI, PT, PEDOT or PPS, and wherein the conductive polymer comprises large molecules acting as pseudo capacitors.

11. An energy storage apparatus comprising an electrode including a fine-array porous material, wherein: the fine-array porous material comprises a plurality of pores, wherein the plurality of pores have a size of less than about 1000 μm; the size of the plurality of pores is substantially uniform with a variation of less than about 20%; and the fine-array porous material has a porosity of about 40-85%.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the fine-array porous material comprises a metal selected from at least one of Ni, Al, Ti, Sn, Zr, V, Nb, Ta, W, Cr, Fe, Co, Rh, Ir, Pt, Pd, Cu, Ag, Au, or Mn.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises a metal oxide on surface of the fine-array porous material.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the fine-array porous material comprises at least one of RuO.sub.2, TiO.sub.2, MnO.sub.2, Al.sub.2O.sub.3, BaTiO.sub.3, SrTiO.sub.3, Ba.sub.xSr.sub.1-xTiO.sub.3, TaO, Cu.sub.2O, ZnO, Fe.sub.2O.sub.3, SnO2, Co3O4, V2O5, PZT, or PLZT.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises graphene within void space of the plurality of pores.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising an electrolyte, wherein the fine-array porous material further comprises a layer of grain-shaped dielectric material on surface of the fine-array porous material, and wherein the electrolyte acts as another electrode.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the apparatus comprises a lithium battery having an anode, and wherein the fine-array porous material of the anode has a composition of a lithiated ternary transition metal oxide selected from Li—MnO.sub.2, or LiFePO.sub.4.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the fine-array porous material of a cathode has a composition selected from at least one of Ni, Al, Ti, Sn, Zr, V, Nb, Ta, W, Cr, Fe, Co, Rh, Ir, Pt, Pd, Cu, Ag, Au, or Mn.

19. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein: the apparatus comprises a supercapacitor including a first metal oxide fine-array porous layer and a second metal oxide fine-array porous layer; the first layer has a conductivity higher than the second layer; the first layer comprises at least one of ITO or IZO, or a conductive polymer; wherein the second layer comprises a metal oxide or a polymer; and the apparatus further comprises an electrode acting as an opposite electrode.

20. A method of fabricating an electrode material for an energy storage apparatus, the method comprising: 3-D printing a fine-array porous material including a plurality of pores, wherein: the plurality of pores have a size of less than about 1000 μm; the size of the plurality of pores is substantially uniform with a variation of less than about 20%; and the fine-array porous material has a porosity of about 40-85%.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0020] FIG. 1 illustrates a fine-array porous material for use in electrodes in an energy storage apparatus.

[0021] FIG. 2 illustrates fine-array porous electrode materials containing additional smaller-scale electrode materials insides the pores according to some embodiments.

[0022] FIG. 3 illustrates a supercapacitor comprising fine-array porous material in its electrodes according to some embodiments.

[0023] FIG. 4 illustrates a lithium battery comprising fine-array porous material in its electrodes according to some embodiments.

[0024] FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of a supercapacitor or a battery according to some embodiments.

[0025] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a lithium battery according to some embodiments.

[0026] FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view of a supercapacitor or a battery according to some other embodiments.

[0027] FIG. 8 illustrates a template of tightly-packed colloidal particles used to fabricate a fine-array porous film.

[0028] FIG. 9 illustrates a fine-array porous film after removal of the template.

[0029] FIG. 10 illustrates a large-area fine-array porous film.

[0030] FIG. 11 illustrates a flexible fine-array porous film that can be used as a power source for flexible electronics.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0031] FIG. 1 illustrates a high surface-area-to-volume ratio fine-array porous material used in the electrodes of an electrical energy storage apparatus, such as a supercapacitor or a lithium battery. The fine-array porous material can have a shape of a membrane (101), can have a surface area larger than 100 cm.sup.2, such as 20 cm×20 cm, and can have a thickness of 25 μm, for example, in its cross sectional view (102). The fine-array porous material contains highly packed fine-array pores, as shown in a 2D view (103) and in a 3D view (104). The pores can have sizes of, for example, less than about 1000 μm, and preferably less than about 0.1 μm, and can have a porosity of 40-85%, preferably about 74%. The size of the pores in the fine-array porous material is substantially uniform with a variation of less than about 20% and preferably of less than about 10%.

[0032] Because of the much smaller pore size and porosity, the electrodes of the electrical energy storage apparatus disclosed in FIG. 1 may have an extremely large specific surface area, and thus an extremely large capacity to store electrical energy as well, which is significantly larger than that of the typical electrode materials of existing supercapacitors and lithium batteries. Additionally, the periodic structure of the fine-array porous electrode material (103 and 104) allows the electrolyte to be evenly absorbed and smoothly transported around the electrodes, and because of this feature, the concentration of the electrolyte solution, and internal resistance as well, is steadier and the lifetime and charge/discharge cycles may be extended.

[0033] FIG. 2 illustrates fine-array porous electrode materials containing additional smaller-scale electrode materials insides the pores according to some embodiments. In one embodiment, a fine-array porous material (210) has pores (211) containing smaller-scale mesocarbon microspheres (212). In another embodiment, a fine-array porous material (220) has pores (221) containing smaller-scale graphene (222).

[0034] FIG. 3 illustrates a supercapacitor (300) comprising fine-array porous material in its two electrodes (301 and 302) according to some embodiments. The positive (301) electrode and negative electrode (302) each comprise a fine-array porous material (303 and 304), and a conductive current collector (305 and 306). The supercapacitor (300) may further comprise a separator (307). As discussed above, according to some embodiments, the dedicated separator may not be necessary, but rather can be an oxide as an integral part of the fine-array porous materials. An electrolyte (308) can be disposed in the supercapacitor to make contacts between the current collectors (305 and 306) and the separator (307). The supercapacitor (300) can work with a load resistance (310) and a power source (312).

[0035] The supercapacitors comprising fine-array porous materials can have much higher double-layer capacitance than traditional capacitors due to the extremely large specific surface area of the electrodes in the double-layer capacitors contained therein. In some embodiments where a supercapacitor comprises a metal oxide, such as MnO.sub.2, NiO, RuO.sub.2, in the fine-array porous electrode material, the use of the metal oxide in the electrodes may further greatly increase the faradaic pseudocapacitance of the supercapacitor. These features can both result in drastically elevated capacity of the electrical energy stored in the supercapacitors.

[0036] The improvement in the electron storage capabilities can be estimated from the working surface areas based on the specific surface area formula:

[00001]$\begin{array}{cc}{s}_v\approx \frac{281.8}{d}\left[{\left(1-\theta \right)}^{1/2}-\left(1-\theta \right)\right].Math.{\left(1-\theta \right)}^{0.4}],& \left(1\right)\end{array}$

[0037] where S.sub.v is the specific surface area, d is the average pore diameter in units of mm, θ is the porous ratio or porosity. For example: for a d=0.01 mm, a porous ratio of 90%, the specific surface area is 2425/mm. For lithium battery carbon electrodes or supercapacitor carbon electrodes, the working porosity can be in the range of 0.9-0.95, for example. For the porous materials disclosed herein (e.g., an inverse opal structure), the porosity can be about 0.74. Correspondingly, the calculated parameters can have the following comparison:

TABLE-US-00001 TABLE 1 Specific surface area constant D (mm) θ (1 − θ){circumflex over ( )}0.5 1 − θ (1 − θ){circumflex over ( )}0.4 Sv Carbon 281.8 0.1 0.95 0.224 0.05 0.30 147.60 Supercapacitor 281.8 0.05 0.95 0.224 0.05 0.30 295.21 281.8 0.01 0.95 0.224 0.05 0.30 1476.03 Fine array porous 281.8 0.1 0.74 0.510 0.26 0.58 410.87 Supercapacitor 281.8 0.05 0.74 0.510 0.26 0.58 821.73 281.8 0.01 0.74 0.510 0.26 0.58 4108.66

[0038] As can be seen from the above equation and Table 1, due to the small pore sizes and smaller porosity, the porous materials according to embodiments disclosed herein, when used as electrodes, can have working surface areas substantially larger than carbon electrodes. In some embodiments, the fine-array porous material can increase the specific area to a factor of about 2.8 or larger that of a carbon supercapacitor electrode. In some other embodiments, the specific area can be 100 times larger. When applied to supercapacitor batteries, the exceptional working electrode surface areas also significantly improve performances of the supercapacitors.

[0039] The fine-array porous structure can be made of metal conductors, and can be oxidized at the material surface forming metal oxides such as Ni/NiO, Al/Al.sub.2O.sub.3, Ti/TiO.sub.2, Sn/SnO.sub.2, Mn/MnO.sub.2. Alternatively, the metal conductors can be coated with one or more layers of precious-metal oxides, such as Al/RuO.sub.2, Ti/TaO, etc. In some implementations, the fine-array porous structure can be made integrally with RuO.sub.2, TiO.sub.2, MnO.sub.2, etc.

[0040] By forming anodes or cathodes of a supercapacitor using the fine-array porous structure disclosed herein, in addition to increasing the specific area thereby significantly increasing the dual-layer capacitor areas, as a result of material selection such as oxides (RuO.sub.2, NiO, MnO.sub.2, etc.) combined with Faraday capacitance characteristics, the electricity storage capacity of the supercapacitor can be drastically improved.

[0041] The materials used for the supercapacitors can be selected from, for example, Ni/NiO, Al/Al.sub.2O.sub.3, Cu/CuO, Ti/TiO.sub.2, RuO.sub.2, Mn.sub.2O.sub.3, MnO, TaO2, etc. A fabrication system can be employed to fabricate the suitable fine array porous materials. The system can include a colloidal particle template formation portion configured to fabricate a colloidal particle template; an infiltration portion configured to infiltrate the colloidal particle template with an infiltrant substance; and a template removal portion configured to remove the colloidal crystal template and keep the infiltrant substance substantially intact. The fabrication process may include the following steps.

[0042] FIG. 4 illustrates a lithium ion battery (400) comprising a fine-array porous material in its electrodes according to some embodiments. The lithium ion battery (400) comprises a cathode (410) and an anode (420), separated by a separator (430) that allows the Li+ ion to move across. The cathode (410) comprises a positive current collector (411) and a fine-array porous cathode material (412). The anode (420) comprises a negative current collector (421) and a fine-array porous anode material (422). An electrolyte (440) containing Li.sup.+ is disposed within the lithium battery (400).

[0043] In some embodiments, the anode of the lithium ion battery comprises a metal fine-array porous material, wherein the surface of the metal fine-array porous material has a composition of lithiated ternary transition metal oxides, such as Li-MnO.sub.2 and LiFePO4. In some embodiments, the cathode of the lithium ion battery also comprises a fine-array porous material, and examples of its composition include Cu, Ni, or Mn.

[0044] FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view of a supercapacitor or a battery (500) according to some embodiments. The structure can include current collectors (502, 504), separator (506), and a porous, high-surface-area material (508) sandwiched therebetween. The material (508) can comprise particles and/or fibers (510). An electrolyte (512) can be disposed between the particles or fibers. The particles or fibers (510) can have a plurality of pores (514) therein. Electrical double-layer structure (516) can be formed around the particles or fibers (510). Energy storage can be realized by charge separation in the double-layer structure (516).

[0045] FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a lithium battery (600) according to some embodiments. The battery (600) can comprise an electrode, such as a cathode (602), which may include a fine-array porous material, as well as catalysts for making and breaking Li—O and O—O bonds at specific energies. The battery (600) can also include an electrolyte (604), which according to some embodiments can be a solid electrolyte configured to stabilize the interface between the electrolyte (604) and the cathode (602). The stable electrolyte also provides good ionic conductivity. Compatible interface membranes may be included for separations. Ionic matter (606) can be fed to the battery (600) through a nanoporous carbon material (608) for transport and conductivity.

[0046] FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view of a supercapacitor or a battery (700) according to some other embodiments. The structure (700) can include current collectors (702, 704), a porous negative electrode (706), a porous positive electrode (708), a separator (710) and its associated interface ceramic layers (712). The porous negative electrode (706) can comprise a graphite material (714) disposed in an electrolyte (716). The porous positive electrode (708) can comprise a metal material (718) bonded together using a polymer binder (720).

[0047] In some embodiments, the porous materials used for the electrodes described above can be fabricated using 3D printing technologies. In the 3D printing, parameters such as grain boundaries can be designed into the control program. In some embodiments, the porous materials fabricated by 3D printing contain few or no grain boundaries. Periodic structures can be printed using a 3D printer, including for example FCC, HCP, BCC, SC, DC, or other periodic structures.

[0048] In some other embodiments, the porous materials can be fabricated using the methods described below.

[0049] (1) An electrophoresis solution containing a substantially uniform-sized colloidal nanosphere suspension can be disposed in an electrophoresis tank. A working electrode can comprise a movable continuous conductive tape configured to feed into the electrophoresis tank, provide a surface for the formation of a colloidal particle template in the electrophoresis tank, move out of the electrophoresis tank if the electrophoresis self-assembly of the colloidal particle template is complete. The working electrode can be fed with a rate variation, such as 0.1 μm/sec-5 mm/sec, or at a fixed rate or no rate variations (0 μm/sec). In some embodiments, the working electrode can be a solid, such as a metal plate, a silicon wafer, ITO glass, etc. A self-assembled colloidal particle template is shown in FIG. 8.

[0050] (2) The colloidal particle template can be transported, for example using the conductive tape or other substrate, through the oven for drying. The drying process can be performed while the template is moving (i.e., dynamic), or while the template is static inside the oven.

[0051] (3) The working electrode (e.g., tape) that comes from the electrophoresis portion carrying the dried colloidal particle template can be fed into a deposition tank for plating (such as electroplating, Sol-Gel, CVD, PVD, etc.). Using the fine array of uniformly stacked particles as a template, metal, polymers, ceramic or other materials can be plated over the template filling the space between the particles, forming a fine-array porous film over the colloidal particle template.

[0052] (4) An etching solution can be employed for removal of the colloidal particle template, and the fine-array porous film can therefore be obtained. An example of a fine-array porous film with a high specific surface area is illustrated in FIG. 9.

[0053] (5) The substrate can be removed from the fine-array porous film comprising tightly stacked pores, and the resulting film can have a large area, as illustrated in FIG. 10. The resulting film can also be flexible, as shown in FIG. 11.

[0054] (6) The fine-array porous film can be cut to obtain films or specified shapes and sizes for various applications.

[0055] The flexible fine-array porous material can be used as electrodes with unconventional shapes. For example, according to some embodiments, a cylindrical electrode can be provided. According to some embodiments, flexible electrodes, and thereby flexible supercapacitors and batteries can be provided, for example, as part of wearable electronics.

[0056] One or more advantages of one or more embodiments disclosed herein may include, for example, reduced electrode resistance, improved electrolyte concentration, and higher utilization of specific areas.

[0057] Although specific embodiments have been described above in detail, the description is merely for purposes of illustration. It should be appreciated, therefore, that many aspects described above are not intended as required or essential elements unless explicitly stated otherwise. Various modifications of, and equivalent acts corresponding to, the disclosed aspects of the exemplary embodiments, in addition to those described above, can be made by a person of ordinary skill in the art, having the benefit of the present disclosure, without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure defined in the following claims, the scope of which is to be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass such modifications and equivalent structures.