There are safety concerns with current lithium-ion battery technology due to thermal runaway events leading to fire.  Most lithium-ion battery safety research has been focused on the electrolyte. A different direction is to investigate new separator materials that are non-flammable.  While new separator technologies are being explored, most continue to employ a polymer component.  We are exploring separators made of flexible porous ceramic oxide films in order to eliminate the polymer entirely, and, thereby, increase the thermal robustness of the separator.  A new fabrication method has been developed to prepare flexible porous ceramic oxide films that can be bent with a radius of curvature exceeding 0.2 mm.   Lithium-ion cells assembled with this porous ceramic oxide film as a separator have shown a coulumbic efficiency of 99.93%, equivalent to current commercial batteries with porous polypropylene separators.

Safety improvements for lithium-ion batteries: A new flexible ceramic separator

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.