(229d) Electrospun Nanofibers for Lithium Ion Batteries

Electrospinning is now a relatively common method for the production of one-dimensional nanomaterials from a scalable, cost-effective process. Recently, we have developed an approach to generate inorganic nanofibers with various nanostructures through a high-throughput, water-based solution process. We have utilized this process to generate nanofibers for lithium ion battery anode and cathode structures. It is well understood that the utilization of silicon at the anode requires nano-synthesis to overcome pulverization, and thus we have generated carbon/silicon composite anode structures that display an extremely high energy capacity (2100 mAh/g) over many cycles. Further, we display control over the carbon/silicon composite structure to minimize capacity loss for long lifetime performance. However, it is known that the generation of high energy density anode materials will not drastically improve the energy density of the battery as a whole until a high energy density cathode is synthesized. To this end, we have synthesized similar cathode materials consisting of carbon/lithium sulfide composite structures that similarly display high energy density and long lifetime. These materials, when paired together, are shown to have one of the highest theoretical energy densities thus enabling us to cost-effectively produce the highest energy density battery as a whole.