Tutorial 4

1:45 – 5:30pm, Monday, September 2009

Lithium Batteries—The next Generation of Power Source for Vehicles 

X. Q. Yang, K. W. Nam, H. S. Lee, and J. McBreen
Brookhaven National Lab. Upton, NY11973, USA

The application of lithium-ion batteries have expanded rapidly into cell phones, notebook computers, and consumer electronics.  However, in order to meet the great challenge as power source for electric and hybrid electric vehicles (EV and HEV), better lithium-ion batteries with lower cost, longer cycling life, and improved safety characteristics need to be developed.

In this tutorial we will present

·                  the basic chemistry,

·                  working mechanism,

·                  current state of art materials for

°         cathode,

°         anode, and

°         electrolytes

The new materials under development and their advantages and disadvantages in comparison with the current ones will be discussed.  The comparison between the lithium-ion batteries and the Nickel-metal hydride batteries, which is currently being used in most HEVs will be given.   Some market overview and the development outlook in US, Japan and China will also be presented. 

Biography: Dr. Xiao-Qing Yang is a material scientist and PI for the Applied Battery Research for Transportation (ABRT) and Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) projects at BNL funded by the Office of Vehicle Technologies, EE&RE, U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE).  The goals of these projects include synthesis and characterization of new cathode, anode, and electrolyte materials with improved calendar and cycling life, better abuse tolerance for lithium batteries.  Together with his colleagues at Brookhaven National Lab., he has developed several new synchrotron based x-ray techniques to do in situ characterization of battery materials.  Using these techniques, many new structures, new phase transitions, and new observations about the structural changes of battery materials during charge-discharge cycling and under other operating conditions have been reported by his research group. He and his co-workers has also designed, synthesized, and characterized several families of new boron based compounds as anion receptors.  When used as additives, these new compounds can increase the solubility of LiF salt in organic solvents by several orders of magnitude, which opened up a new approach in developing electrolytes for high voltage electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries.  Several US patents had been awarded. 

Dr. Yang’s research on lithium battery materials is well recognized internationally.  He has been invited to give presentations at international conferences and world class institutions, such as Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland; Argonne National Laboratory in US; and industrial companies such as Sony and Panasonic in Japan, Samsung and LG Chem. in Korea; Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University in China.

Dr. Yang organized and co-organized several international conferences, such as IBA2007 in Shenzhen and CIBF2006 in Beijing.  He is one of the organizers and the general secretary for the 14^th International meeting of Lithium Battery (14^th IMLB) in Tianjin, China, June 22, 2008.  Dr. Yang was elected as a member of the board of directors of the International Battery Materials Associate (IBA) in December of 2008.

Dr. Yang received his Ph. D. in physics in 1986 from University of Florida and worked as post-doc research associate at Brookhaven National Lab. from 1986 to 1988.  He was promoted to assistant scientist in 1988, associate scientist in 1990, and scientist in 1993.  He is a group leader of energy storage research in Chemistry Department of BNL now working on the synthesis and characterization of lithium battery materials for EV, HEV, and PHEV. Honorable Positions include Guest Professor, Department of Physics, Wuhan University; Science advisor, Tianjin Power Source Institute; Associated chief editor, Chinese Journal of Power Sources.