Research Team of Professor Sangheon Lee Revealed a Strategy to Innovate Materials for Lithium-ion Battery EVs
- Date2024.01.03
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Somin Chae (Adviser: Sangheon Lee), a student in the Graduate Program in Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the ELTEC College of Engineering (Dean: Jeong-Tae Kim), published a strategy for material synthesis to optimize the electrochemical performance of next-generation anode materials for lithium-ion batteries in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a renowned international journal. (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c12846)
Professor Sangheon Lee (Left) and Somin Chae (Right)
Many Korean lithium-ion battery producers, such as LG Energy Solution, have manufactured high-capacity and quick-charge batteries for high-end electric vehicles (EVs) by mixing a small amount of silicon oxide in graphite. Such a strategy, however, has not been able to optimize the electrochemical performance of silicon oxide anode materials for lithium-ion batteries and add more silicon oxide.
Somin Chae and her team demonstrated that phase separation of silicon oxide during charge-discharge cycles impacts the performance of lithium-ion batteries through quantum chemical engineering modeling and explained its mechanism. Based on such an understanding, the team proposed a strategy to synthesize silicon oxide anode material that can extend the full-charge range of EVs to 2,000km.
Quantum molecular modeling layout of lithium-ion in silicon oxide anode
“In this research, we focused on figuring out an unknown reason that has limited performance optimization of silicon oxide anode material. To this end, we proposed the structure model of silicon oxide where Si and SiO2 were separated and performed a series of computational simulations combined with a unique tomography-like sampling scheme to analyze the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of lithium atoms within Si and SiO2 domains. As a result, we found out that the Si/SiO2 interface serves as a critical lithium transport channel, which might be able to suggest an idea to innovate the silicon oxide anode material.” Chae explained her team’s research.
“As a professor at Ewha Womans University, I am so happy to see a good student like Somin using excellent research infrastructure at school to the fullest and showing outstanding performance as a researcher. I will do my best to help more students to prosper as researchers and show outstanding performance.” Professor Lee said.
The research project was supported by the Mid-Career Researcher Program (Project Number: 2023R1A2C1006648) of the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Title of the published paper: “Energy Landscapes for Lithium Incorporation and Diffusion in Multidomain Silicon Suboxide Anode Materials”
Title of the Journal: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 15, 49, 57059–57069