High throughput manufacture of hierarchical Li-Ion battery materials

Despite continuous progress in both nanomaterial synthesis and assembly, there is a gap in industrially relevant technologies to scale up the manufacturing of advanced nanomaterial structures. Combining advances in nanotechnology with emulsion templating and high throughput microfluidic techniques can offer a paradigm shift in how complex materials are processed and structured from the bottom up. The ERC Consolidator Grant MIGHTY has demonstrated that microfluidic droplet generators can produce nanoparticle super-structures with controlled morphologies for applications in energy storage. More precisely, this process allows optimisation of Li-Ion battery electrode composition, porosity, and packing, which improves energy density and rate performance of Li-Ion batteries.

This project seeks to provide additional support to scale up the particle manufacturing process to commercially relevant volumes, in order to translate the achieved performance benefits to commercial Li-ion battery electrode manufacture. This is particularly timely to support the EU’s automotive industry as it transitions to electrical vehicles.