Stabilized lithium metal powder for li-ion application, composition and process

a lithium metal powder and lithium metal technology, applied in the direction of electrochemical generators, cell components, transportation and packaging, etc., can solve the problems of limiting the choice of cathode active materials, raising safety concerns, and unsafe conditions in the battery, so as to improve the stability of air and solvent, improve the storage life, and improve the effect of protection

Inactive Publication Date: 2009-03-05
FMC CORP
View PDF50 Cites 51 Cited by
  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]The present invention provides a lithium metal powder protected by a substantially continuous layer of a polymer. Such a substantially continuous polymer layer provides improved protection such as compared to typical CO2-passivation. The resulting lithium metal powder has improved air and solvent stability and improved storage life. Furthermore, the polymer-protected lithium metal powder exhibits significantly better stability in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), which is commonly used as a slurry solvent in the electrode fabrication process, and reacts with unprotected lithium.

Problems solved by technology

Unfortunately, upon cycling, the lithium metal developed dendrites that ultimately caused unsafe conditions in the battery.
This limits the choice of cathode active materials because the active materials must contain removable lithium.
In particular, these delithiated products tend to react with the electrolyte and generate heat, which raises safety concerns.
Lithium metal, particularly lithium metal powder; however, because of its high surface area, can be a deterrent for its use in a variety of applications because of its pyrophoric nature.
The CO2-passivated lithium metal powder, however, can be used only in air with low moisture levels for a limited period of time before the lithium metal content decays because of the reaction of the lithium metal and air.

Method used

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
View more

Image

Smart Image Click on the blue labels to locate them in the text.
Viewing Examples
Smart Image
  • Stabilized lithium metal powder for li-ion application, composition and process
  • Stabilized lithium metal powder for li-ion application, composition and process
  • Stabilized lithium metal powder for li-ion application, composition and process

Examples

Experimental program
Comparison scheme
Effect test

example 1

[0034]A lithium dispersion (47.30 g) passivated with CO2 gas in oil (27.5%) containing 13.01 g of lithium with a medium particle size of 45 micron was charged into 120 ml hastelloy can equipped with a 1″ Teflon coated stir bar. 1.3 g of PEO (Polyox WSRN80) dry powder was also added to the can. The solution was heated from ambient to 75° C. at a rate of 5° C. / min and held for 10 minutes. The sample was further heated from 75° C. to 175° C. at 5° C. / min and held for one hour. This mixture was continuously stirred at 200 rpm during the heating phase. Sample was allowed to cool to room temperature and transferred to the storage bottle. Further, lithium dispersion was filtered and washed three times with hexane in an enclosed, sintered glass filter funnel and twice with n-pentane to remove the hydrocarbon oil medium. The funnel was heated with a heat gun to remove traces of the solvents and the resulting free-flowing powder was transferred to tightly capped storage bottles.

example 2

[0035]A lithium dispersion (45.00 g) passivated with CO2 gas in oil (27.5.%) containing 12.37 g of lithium with a medium particle size of 45 micron was charged into 120 ml hastelloy can equipped with a 1″ Teflon coated stir bar. 1.2 g of PEO (Polyox WSRN80) dry powder was also added to the can. The solution was heated from ambient to 75° C. at a rate of 5° C. / min and held for 10 minutes. The sample was further heated from 75° C. to 175° C. at 5° C. / min and held for one hour. Finally the sample was heated from 175° C. to 200° C. at 20° C. / min. This mixture was continuously stirred at 200 rpm during the heating phase. Sample was allowed to cool to room temperature and transferred to a storage bottle. Further, lithium dispersion was filtered and washed three times with hexane and twice with n-pentane in an enclosed, sintered glass filter funnel to remove the hydrocarbon oil medium. The funnel was heated with a heat gun to remove traces of the solvents and the resulting free-flowing pow...

example 3

[0036]A lithium dispersion (44.00 g) passivated with CO2 gas in oil (27.5%) containing 12.10 g of lithium with a medium particle size of 45 micron was charged into 120 ml hastelloy can equipped with a 1″ Teflon coated stir bar. The solution was heated to 75° C. and 1.2 ml of BYK-P 104 S (BYK Chemie) was added to the lithium dispersion. This mixture was continuously stirred at 200 rpm for one hour. Sample was allowed to cool to room temperature and transferred to a storage bottle. Further, lithium dispersion was filtered and washed three times with hexane and twice with n-pentane in an enclosed, sintered glass filter funnel to remove the hydrocarbon oil medium. The funnel was heated with a heat gun to remove traces of the solvents and the resulting free-flowing powder was transferred to tightly capped storage bottles.

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to view more

PUM

PropertyMeasurementUnit
thicknessaaaaaaaaaa
thicknessaaaaaaaaaa
temperatureaaaaaaaaaa
Login to view more

Abstract

The present invention provides a lithium metal powder protected by a substantially continuous layer of a polymer. Such a substantially continuous polymer layer provides improved protection such as compared to typical CO2-passivation.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of, and incorporates herein by reference in its entirety, the following U.S. Provisional Application: U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 969,267, filed Aug. 31, 2007.FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to stabilized lithium metal powder (“SLMP”) having improved air and solvent stability and having a longer storage life. Such improved SLMP can be used in a wide variety of applications including organo-metal and polymer synthesis, primary lithium batteries, rechargeable lithium batteries, and rechargeable lithium ion batteries.[0003]Lithium and lithium-ion secondary or rechargeable batteries have recently found use in certain applications such as in cellular phones, cameorders, and laptop computers, and even more recently, in larger power applications such as in electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. It is preferred in these applications that the secondary ba...

Claims

the structure of the environmentally friendly knitted fabric provided by the present invention; figure 2 Flow chart of the yarn wrapping machine for environmentally friendly knitted fabrics and storage devices; image 3 Is the parameter map of the yarn covering machine
Login to view more

Application Information

Patent Timeline
no application Login to view more
Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): H01M4/40C22C24/00B22F1/102B22F1/16
CPCB22F1/0062B22F9/06H01M4/134Y02E60/122H01M4/382H01M10/0525H01M4/364B22F1/102B22F1/16H01M4/386H01M4/387Y02E60/10H01M4/38B22F2301/054B22F2302/45H01M4/62
Inventor YAKOVLEVA, MARINAGAO, YUANFITCH, KENNETH BRIANPALEPU, PRAKASH THYAGALI, YANGXINGWOLTERMANN, CHRISTOPHER JAY
Owner FMC CORP
Who we serve
  • R&D Engineer
  • R&D Manager
  • IP Professional
Why Eureka
  • Industry Leading Data Capabilities
  • Powerful AI technology
  • Patent DNA Extraction
Social media
Try Eureka
PatSnap group products

Browse by: Latest US Patents, China's latest patents, Technical Efficacy Thesaurus, Application Domain, Technology Topic.

© 2024 PatSnap. All rights reserved.Legal|Privacy policy|Modern Slavery Act Transparency Statement|Sitemap