Abstract:

Despite their promise to mitigate many problems and offer new opportunities in energy storage systems, nanomaterials have proven to be difficult to tailor and preserve their assembly throughout manufacturing processes when a scale-up is considered. My group has been working on understanding and modification of instability-driven processes to devise scalable manufacturing processes such as gas-assisted electrospinning and air-controlled electrospray, which can also provide the tailored assembly of nanomaterials. I will show several examples of using these processes to assemble various nanomaterials in the development of next generation battery materials, including: 1) thermally stable, non-flammable polymer/ceramic hybrid separator and high capacity silicon/graphene anode for high performance Li-ion batteries; and 2) graphene coated separator and highly loaded, layered sulfur/graphene cathode for high rate Li-sulfur batteries.