lithium-ion battery - challenges for renewable energy solutions - innoventum background and briefing...

INNOVENTUM Li-Ion Battery Breakthrough

For Better Sustainability, Durability and Affordability

Briefing Material by

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Background on InnoVentum and ADB��(Asian Development Bank)

•  InnoVentum is striving to give Power to the People by making renewable energy affordable and available.

•  1.6 billion people have no access to electricity at all. To start with, InnoVentum is targeting “island economies” like the Philippines, the Maldives and Sri Lanka where most energy today is produced by diesel and gasoline generators.

•  InnoVentum is offering a typhoon-resilient solar-wind hybrid solution called the Dali PowerTower and this needs a battery back-up.

•  Most human aid organisations today require significant capacity – amounting to 30 kWh per set – and modern Li-Ion Battery (LIB) technology, but expect lowest possible LCOE (Levelised Cost of Energy) and best possible sustainability/LCA.

•  InnoVentum is using iKnow-Who to organise a collaborative University Competition

Dali PowerTower in the Philippines

3 © www.iknow-who.com

Background on www.iknow-who.com with twenty Breakthrough Innovations made with some of the World’s Industry Leaders

• Setting a new standard for digital writing (2003) • Cutting ammonia emissions

by 95% (2008) •  Solving the Locking-Pin

Challenge (2006) •  Developing revolutionizing Downstream Equipment at

half COGS (2007)

•  Breakthroughs in Functional Foods (2001)

•  Porsche’s Ceramic Brake System (2001)

•  New manufacturing method for Porsche’s lightweight carbon-reinforced body parts (2004) • Project insights published in Harvard Business Review:

http://hbr.org/2005/12/bringing-the-college-inside/ar/pr

• New Crowdsourcing System (2004-2006)

• Doubling both flexural strength and fracture

toughness while enhancing translucency (2011)

• The World’s first carbon negative wooden towers for small scale wind turbines (2006-09) • The World’s first hybrid wind and PV solution in renewable materials (2012-13)

• Developing a new napkin folding machine (2008-10)

Dental Ceramics Company

• Rare-earth material Replacement (2012)

• Breakthrough Polymer without any emissions

(2012)

•  Enhancing lifetime of the carbon strips (2010) •  Inductive Contactless Power Transmission

(2011) •  Business model innovation to Commercialize

the Inductive Primove Technology (2011)

• Cutting Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions by 50% (2013-ongoing)

• The new ICEpower conversion module for audio applications (1999) cutting energy consumption by 90%

Technical Specifications/Performance Requirements by ADB

•  Nº Cycles ≈ 5000 with 80% DoD

•  IP50

•  Electrical data: Un = 48 V, capacity ≈ 27.5 kWh/set

•  PN ≈ 13 kW/set

•  Pmax ≈16 kW/set

•  Total capacity of the two sets ≈ 55 kWh

•  Weight – not important

•  Volume – not important

•  Operating Temperature between 0°C and 30°C

Commercial Li-ion electrodes

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Nickel cobalt aluminium (NCA)

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Nickel manganese cobalt (NMC)

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Manganese oxide (LMO)

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Iron phosphate (LFP)

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Titanate (LTO)

Energy

Power

Safety

Performance

Life span

Cost

Cobalt oxide (LCO)

Background on the Breakthrough Approach •  To perform extreme technology breakthroughs, InnoVentum relies a technology

development company, iKnow-Who.com, founded in 2001 by Prof. Dr. Dr. Sigvald Harryson

•  iKnow-Who.com has solved 20 extreme technology challenges for a large number of Fortune 100 companies and some Fortune 500 companies

•  The approach used is to select and coach 4-5 university teams to compete to solve the challenge. Although the teams compete, the approach brings the teams into different modes of collaboration so that they learn from each other’s solutions

Dali PowerTower in the Philippines •  To create LIBs that are affordable, durable and sustainable, we

are planning for Challenge number 21 in collaboration with university teams from

•  Lund, Sweden

•  Göteborg (Chalmers), Sweden

•  Nanjing and potentially Peking University from China

Challenge Description

•  Find the best LIB solutions (in terms of deep-cycling capability, cost and sustainability) that are suitable for renewable energy applications

Steps:

1.  Analyse solutions used today (state-of-the-art).

2.  Think about possible improvements of the existing technologies. -  Costly, rare and toxic materials need to find affordable, available and sustainable

substitutes. - Most likely, new applications of nanomaterials can take LIBs to new levels, but the challenge

is to find out which nanomaterials and how to apply them.

3.  The improved solution should be possible to produce in current LIB manufacturing processes – or else time to market will be too long.

Framing the Goals of the Competition

Intelligence to Select the Best

University Teams

Kick-Off + Coaching to Build Initial Concepts

Concept Creation and

Mid-term Review

Concept Consolidation,

Completion and Feedback

Hundreds of Ideas and Possible

Approaches

5-15 Initial Concepts

Hand over of Finally Selected Solution

3-6 Business Cases

Coaching of the University Teams – Throughout the Collaborative Competition

Final Product Formulations, Laboratory Material

and Test Data

Final Review, Concept

Evaluation and Patent

Protection

Strategic Framework with Clear Selection

Criteria

Module I + II Module III Module IV Module V Module VI

Typical Steps in a Collaborative University Competition – Timeline 6-8 months depending on complexity and university schedules

Example of a University Team participating in a Collaborative University Competition

!  One Professor focused on Advanced Materials

!  One Associate Professor focused on Material Science

!  Two PhD students

!  Eight Master Students doing their final year project work, who take the opportunity to focus their project on Challenge – while getting intensive coaching from the Professors and the iKnow-Who.com coaches


Example of Possible Breakthrough Approaches (I)

!  Cathode in Si-based carbon materials reaching 4200 mAh/g in theory. Cheap and environmentally friendly, BUT exposed to volume effects. Finding new ways to prevent/reduce the volume effects can be a potential breakthrough

!  Nitrogen doped graphene as cathode

!  Parylene = thin film produced through chemical vapor deposition. Poly-p-xylene. Excellent membrane to separate anode and cathode


Example of Possible Breakthrough Approaches (II)

!  Silicon-Anode: As silicon has a high specific capacity and a low discharge potential, it is an interesting alternative for the LiB anode, since the usual anodes present lower capacities. On the other hand, silicon is unstable during charge/discharge cycles and a well-known problem is that its volume changes radically. That leads to pulverisation of the material, which decreases the number of cycles. The team is developing an approach using silicon nanowires to handle the volume changes and thereby avoid pulverisation.

!  Nanoparticle Cathode: For the cathode material the idea is to find a material that is compatible with the silicon anode and the electrolyte. Possible solution is the use of nanoparticles in the existing cathodes. Nanoparticles were chosen since their microscaled agglomerates and composites result in minimal diffusion path lengths through the slow diffusion phases. The team keeps a strong focus on packing density to maximise active material content.

Anode: Silicon, Silicon Oxide (SiO2) Advantages

•  Very high specific energy

•  Fast charge

Disadvantages

•  Volume expansion of 400%

•  Durability

Breakthrough opportunities

•  Silicon has one of the highest theoretic specific energy capacities for Lithium Ion technology (10x improvement over graphite). Volume expansion associated with its structure compromises life cycle. Hybrid materials with silicon and carbon has been gaining a lot of attention in the last few years.

Nano Technology for the Anode •  Titanium dioxide: In 2014, researchers at Nanyang Technological University used titanium

dioxide in an anode and achieved 10,000 charging cycles. The battery can be charged to 70% in two minutes. They used a gel material made from titanium dioxide, an abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil. They developed a simple method to turn naturally spherical titanium dioxide particles into nanotubes. This nanostructure sped up the charging reaction.

•  Carbon nanotube: In 2014, researchers at University of California, Riverside developed a battery that charges up to 16 times faster with 60% additional energy density. They use a three-dimensional, cone-shaped cluster of carbon nanotubes. That same year, researchers at Northwestern University found that metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) accommodate lithium much more efficiently than their semiconducting counterparts.

•  Nanowire: In 2007, researchers at Stanford University invented the nanowire battery, which improved battery performance. It uses nanowires to increase the surface area of one or both electrodes. Both replace the traditional graphite anode.

•  Nanopourous Nickel-fluoride: In 2014, researchers at Rice University announced a method to create a flexible, long-lasting battery. They used nanoporous nickel(II) fluoride electrodes layered around a solid electrolyte without using lithium. The device retained 76% of its energy density after 10,000 charge-discharge cycles and 1,000 bending cycles.

Innovation: Cathode

Existing materials can be used in novel structures. A123 Systems has developed a nanostructured LFP electrode that promises increased power and longevity.

Lithium vanadium phosphate (LVP) has been suggested as a potential future material for the positive electrode. Vanadium phosphates share advantages with iron phospates (LFP) such as high safety and long life. Commercial development is aiming to increase charge rate and decrease cost.

Addition of graphene nanosheets to positive electrodes can improve rate capability and cyclability.

Nanophosphate® structure (A123 Systems)

Nano Technology for the Cathode •  Nanophosphate: In 2012, researchers at A123 developed a battery that operates in extreme

temperatures without the need for thermal management material. It went through 2,000 full charge-discharge cycles at 45 C while maintaining over 90% energy density. It does this using a nanophosphate positive electrode.

•  Three-dimensional nanostructure: In 2011, researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discovered that wrapping a thin film into a three-dimensional nanostructure can decrease charge time by a factor of 10 to 100. The technology is also capable of delivering a higher voltage output. In 2013, the team improved the microbattery design, delivering 30 times the energy density 1,000x faster charging. The technology also delivers better power density than supercapacitors. The device achieved a power density of 7.4 W/cm2/mm.

•  Nanosized Balls of Lithium iron phosphate: In 2009, scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology created nanoball batteries that increased charge rates 100 times. They are capable of a 10 second re-charge of a cell phone battery and a 5 minute re-charge of an electric car battery. The cathode is composed of nanosized balls of lithium iron phosphate. The rapid charging is because the nanoballs transmit electrons to the surface of the cathode at a much higher rate. The batteries have also shown higher energy density, power density and cycle durability.

Innovation: Reducing Complexity and Cost

Standard NCA cell vs. Tesla cell US Patent US20100136421

The battery packs powering electric vehicles from Tesla Motors are assemblies of 7000 standard cylindrical cells from Panasonic (NCA, 3100 mAh). It is estimated that the production cost of a Tesla battery packs is lower than $200/kWh. The key to achieving this price point was reduction of cell complexity by removal of redundant cell safety mechanisms and instead implementing management on battery pack level. The process reduces cell production cost but requires more sophisticated engineering design to guarantee hazard containment.

Example of Old and New Breakthrough Approach

!  Focus on the Cathode, Using Graphene instead of Graphite. The surface is a nanomaterial with better properties; The key lab of soft chemistry and functional materials has made graphene for several years; Contacts to companies that can produce graphene appr 30 minutes away from university;

!  The solution is as green as graphite; The graphene can also be used as conductive material in coating and hybrid materials

Bio-Organic Fast Charging Batteries – Still Part of LIB?

•  Battery technology based on explorations into self-assembled nanodots (nano-crystals) of biological origin improves the charging time enormously: the "green" material used to create the battery flash charges in 30 seconds and provides extended battery lifetime.

•  The bio-organic nano-crystal technology is seen as a sustainable solution that can replace current lithium-ion batteries.

•  The technology is expected to reach commercial maturity by 2016.


! Customer Attractiveness

! Business Fit

Challenge Evaluation Criteria


Customer Attractiveness, Criterion I

X1: Durability in terms of number of cycles at 80% DoD (Depth of Discharge)

! 5000+ cycles = 5

! 4000 – 4999 = 4

! 3000 – 3999 = 3

! 1000 – 2999 = 2

! Less than 1000 = 1

Weight of the criterion in evaluation = 40%


Customer Attractiveness, Criterion II

X2: Power Performance: Speed of Charge & Release

! 2000+ W/kg power performance (on cell level) = 5

! 1000 – 1999 W/kg = 4

! 500 – 999 W/kg = 3

! 300 – 499 W/kg = 2

! Less than 300 W/kg = 1



Customer Attractiveness, Criterion III

X3: Affordability: Cost per kWh

NB: Considering cost of kWh for battery (not cell) manufacturing

! Less than 200 $ per kWh = 5

! 201 – 300 $ per kWh = 4

! 301 – 400 $ per kWh = 3

! 401 – 599 $ per kWh = 2

! More than 600 $ per kWh = 1



Business Fit, Criterion I

Y1: Implementation Time

! Existing technology, mass manufacturing = 5

! Existing technology, small-scale manufacturing = 4

! Developing technology, lab manufacturing = 3

! Developing technology, convincing experiments = 2

! Developing technology, conceptual phase = 1



Business Fit, Criterion II

Y2: Sustainability

NB: Concentration by weight

! No harmful or rare materials used, very high recyclability = 5

! No harmful materials, minimal amounts of rare elements, high recyclability = 4

! Limited use of harmful or rare materials, recyclability around 50% = 3

! Limited use of harmful or rare materials, recyclability around 30% = 2

! Considerable use of harmful or rare materials = 1



Business Fit, Criterion III

Y3: Patentability

! Technology is novel, one or more patents are possible, freedom to operate = 5

! Technology is known (not patentable), but there is freedom to operate = 4

! Technology is novel, one or more patents are possible, but no freedom to operate = 3

! Technology is known, patentable discoveries are possible with further research = 2

! Technology is known and heavily patented, no freedom to operate = 1



Assessment and Evaluation Criteria Overview

Challenge Criteria and Weights

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Asia contact: Jeff Gallagher Pronto Concepts Hong Kong Ltd. [email protected] +852 6285 0607

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