High performance asymmetric V₂O₅–SnO₂ nanopore battery by atomic layer deposition

Abstract

Here we report the high performance and cyclability of an asymmetric full cell nanopore battery, comprised of VO as the cathode and prelithiated SnO as the anode, with integrated nanotubular Pt current collectors underneath each nanotubular storage electrode, confined within an anodized aluminium oxide (AAO) nanopore. Enabled by atomic layer deposition (ALD), this coaxial nanotube full cell is fully confined within a high aspect ratio nanopore (150 nm in diameter, 50 μm in length), with an ultra-small volume of about 1 fL. By controlling the amount of lithium ion prelithiated into the SnO anode, we can tune the full cell output voltage in the range of 0.3 V to 3 V. When tested as a massively parallel device (∼2 billion cm), this asymmetric nanopore battery array displays exceptional rate performance and cyclability: when cycled between 1 V and 3 V, capacity retention at the 200C rate is ∼73% of that at 1C, and at 25C rate only 2% capacity loss occurs after more than 500 charge/discharge cycles. With the increased full cell output potential, the asymmetric VO-SnO nanopore battery shows significantly improved energy and power density over the previously reported symmetric cell, 4.6 times higher volumetric energy and 5.2 times higher power density - an even more promising indication that controlled nanostructure designs employing nanoconfined environments with large electrode surface areas present promising directions for future battery technology.

Three-dimensional ordered porous electrode materials for electrochemical energy storage

“…In addition to the improved cycling stability, the enhanced kinetics of the Li ion insertion reaction is demonstrated in the interconnected 3DOP V 2 O 5 electrodes 111 , which are associated with the enhancement in Faradaic reaction utilization of both the surface-dominant and the bulk diffusion-dominant reactions. Moreover, the symmetric V 2 O 5 microbattery with a low voltage can be easily extended to a V 2 O 5 -SnO 2 asymmetric microbattery with a high voltage 112 .…”

Atomic layer deposition of vanadium oxides: process and application review

“…, are known as the layered vanadium oxides, and have attracted a continuous and fervent attention as promising electrode materials for nextgeneration advanced electrochemical energy storage owing to their high specific capacity, abundant resource and low cost, [95][96][97]. Therefore, many synthesis methods for vanadium oxides electrode have been shown to exhibit excellent electrochemical performance, including wet-chemical approaches, [98,99], CVD, [100], and (ALD), [30,50,65,87,94,101,102]. Vanadium oxides prepared by ALD as electrodes have delivered remarkable properties for energy storage.…”

Pre-Lithiation Strategies for Rechargeable Energy Storage Technologies: Concepts, Promises and Challenges

“…Nevertheless, there are some approaches to circumvent cell re-assembly. One possibility is to use the reference electrode of a three-electrode cell set-up to pre-lithiate the negative electrode [55]. However, for commercial state-of-the-art two-electrode cell designs it is not very practical to add an extra Li metal electrode into the cell.…”