High Capacity Silicon Anode Composite for Li-Ion Battery and Novel Anion Conductive Membrane for Alkaline Fuel Cell

Two parallel projects will be presented in this poster. The first one is the development of high energy high power anode composite based on silicon for Lithium-ion battery. Novel polymer scaffold-Si electrodes were prepared using slurry spray technique. This type of electrodes showed high energy density, power density and superb cycle stability, because the porous polymer scaffold can accommodate more volume changes of Si and enhance the lithium ion transport in the electrodes, as well as being able to improve the electrochemical reaction kinetics. The electrochemical performance can be further improved by carbonization of the polymer scaffold to form a porous carbon matrix in which silicon particles are uniformly dispersed.

Second project is the development of an anion (hydroxyl group) conductive membrane based on copolymer made of three monomers, methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate and vinylbenzyl chloride. The preliminary results demonstrated that the random copolymer from these three monomers has promising anion conductivity with great physical strength even at fully water saturated condition. The comb-structure copolymer based on these monomers is currently under investigation. The conductivity and fuel cell performance of this anion conducting membrane will be presented.