Structural ceramic batteries using an earth-abundant inorganic waterglass binder

Abstract

Sodium trisilicate waterglass is an earth-abundant inorganic adhesive which binds to diverse materials and exhibits extreme chemical and temperature stability. Here we demonstrate the use of this material as an electrode binder in a lay-up based manufacturing system to produce structural batteries. While conventional binders for structural batteries exhibit a trade-off between mechanical and electrochemical performance, the waterglass binder is rigid, adhesive, and facilitates ion transport. The bulk binder maintains a Young’s modulus of >50 GPa in the presence of electrolyte solvent while waterglass-based electrodes have high rate capability and stable discharge capacity over hundreds of electrochemical cycles. The temperature stability of the binder enables heat treatment of the full cell stack following lay-up shaping in order to produce a rigid, load-bearing part. The resulting structural batteries exhibit impressive multifunctional performance with a package free cell stack-level energy density of 93.9 Wh/kg greatly surpassing previously published structural battery materials, and a tensile modulus of 1.4 GPa.

Structural pseudocapacitors with reinforced interfaces to increase multifunctional efficiency

“…The light gray region represents the typical characteristics of monofunctional supercapacitors that cannot provide structural functions. Structural batteries: Fe(OH) 2 ( 35 ), LiFePO 4 (LFP) ( 17 ), LPF-waterglass ( 52 ), and LFP-PVDF-HFP ( 53 ). Structural supercapacitors: (a) CF-ZnO ( 14 ), (b) CF-vertical graphene (VG)–MnO 2 ( 54 ), (c) PANI-CF ( 55 ), (d) graphene-CF ( 56 ) (0.07 mWh kg −1 , very small and thus not in the axis range), and (e) carbon aerogel (CAG)–CF ( 57 ).…”

Surface chemistry and structure manipulation of graphene-related materials to address the challenges of electrochemical energy storage

“…carbon-fiber (CF) composites which combine two functions in one device; they not only act as structural components but also as batteries to enable distributed energy storage in an airplane or a car, allowing reduction in complexity and weight. 5,6 The major issues associated with structural batteries are poor mechanical performance of the cathode electrodes and low energy density due to the CF-based electrodes. In general, all types of batteries suffer from low power density due to the sluggish redox reactions/ intercalation of the electrode material.…”

3D porous cementitious electrolytes with “stream-reservoir” ionic channels for high multifunctional performance structural supercapacitors

“…[1][2][3][4][5] Compared with structural batteries, structural supercapacitors (SSCs) have become a research hotspot for engineered energy-storage devices due to their long cycle life, fast charging and discharging speeds and high power density. [6][7][8][9][10] Typically, the combination of electrodes and solid-state electrolytes is used to fabricate SSCs. 11 In addition to electrode materials, the solid-state electrolyte is the key part that determines the electrochemical performance of SSCs.…”