New Secondary Battery Material Extends Electric Vehicle Driving Range... Pukyong National University Develops High-Performance Composite Anode Material with 5 Times Graphite Capacity

Research Achievements of Professor Chaesoo Joon's Industrial Chemistry Team Published in Advanced Materials

High-Performance Porous Silicon-Carbon Composite Anode Material Synthesis Process Diagram.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] A cutting-edge new material development technology that can increase the driving range of electric vehicles has been introduced. A new material with a capacity five times greater than graphite, the existing anode material of next-generation secondary batteries, has been developed and is attracting attention.

On the 30th, the research team led by Professor Chae Su-jong of the Department of Industrial Chemistry at Pukyong National University announced that they recently developed a high-performance porous silicon-carbon composite anode material.

The research team developed porous silicon with a large specific surface area of 972 m2/g (surface area per unit volume), where primary silicon particles smaller than 4 nanometers (nm) form particles of micrometer (μm) size.

Porous silicon has a structural advantage in effectively controlling degradation caused by volume expansion when storing lithium. However, when the size of silicon is reduced to a few nanometers or less, sintering occurs where particles clump together, causing the primary silicon particle size to easily increase or the gaps between internal particles to be lost.

The research team solved this problem by uniformly infiltrating pitch (a black residue left after distilling crude oil or coal tar) extracted from crude oil into the porous silicon.

According to real-time transmission electron microscopy analysis by the research team, the pitch inside the porous silicon carbonizes and suppresses the sintering of silicon at high temperatures.

Furthermore, the carbonized pitch was found to prevent severe volume changes and degradation of silicon during battery operation.

The developed porous silicon-carbon composite anode material was confirmed to have about five times the capacity of graphite anode materials.

In particular, in full cell evaluation, it maintained 80% of the initial capacity even after 450 charge-discharge cycles, showing a lifespan more than 15 times longer compared to porous silicon-carbon composites that did not solve the sintering problem.

Professor Chae Sujong, Pukyong National University.

Professor Chae said, “We have developed a core technology that can solve the problems of existing porous silicon anode materials through an inexpensive and simple process using petroleum-based pitch,” adding, “The anode material developed this time is expected to be used as a next-generation silicon anode material to improve the driving range of electric vehicles due to its excellent properties.”

Professor Chae conducted the research jointly with Dr. Jason Zhang’s team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the United States. The research results were published online in the latest issue of the world-renowned materials science journal Advanced Materials.

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