South Dakota Mines has received a new $750,000
NASA EPSCoR grant to fund research into the next generation of
lithium-sulfur batteries for use in space technology. The grant comes following
a breakthrough on campus into a new polymer-biocarbon cathode coating made from
corn stalk residues that stabilizes next-generation battery chemistry to nearly
double the charging capacity of current technology.
A press release
from NASA on this research states, “Improving the power capacity and life of
batteries could help NASA power rockets, spacecraft, and habitats on the Moon,
and eventually, Mars.”
The breakthrough began with the work
of Rajesh Shende, Ph.D., on finding new uses for
biorefinery waste leftover from the bioprocessing plants, such as
those that turn corn into ethanol. Shende and his team of researchers found
that agriculture residue such as corn stalks, or stover, could be turned into a
battery-grade biocarbon. Ph.D. students Khang Huynh and Bharath Maddipudi worked
with Shende to develop a polymer-coated porous carbon for energy storage
applications. Then, in 2020, Weibing Xing, Ph.D., joined the mechanical
engineering department at Mines. Xing’s expertise is in next-generation lithium
batteries.
“Lithium-ion has been around for like 30 years, and
lithium-sulfur batteries are widely regarded as the most promising next-generation
batteries with the highest energy density,” says Xing.
But Xing notes there are inherent problems with the
chemistry of lithium-sulfur batteries that reduce their ability to store the full
amount of energy they should be able to hold. At Mines, Xing began working with
the Center for Solid-State Electric Power Storage and
the Governor’s Research Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage on the
problems with lithium-sulfur batteries. Shende reached out to mention the
possibility that the battery-grade biocarbon his team developed from corn
stover might be useful in Xing’s research.
“We thought, what the heck, let’s try it,” says
Xing. “We coated a nano-layer of the biocarbon on the cathode of a
lithium-sulfur battery. This had never before been done in the world,” says
Xing.
To the surprise and delight of the research team, it
worked.
“All the sudden instead of somewhat low energy
storage, the battery went to nearly its full theoretical storage capacity,”
says Xing. “It was a completely unexpected discovery,” he says.
The new polymer-biocarbon cathode coating worked so
well in these batteries that the team wanted to triple check their work. “We
could not believe it,” says Xing. “We were asking, ‘Is this real? Is this
actually true?’” So, the team retested the material and analyzed the results
with several methods. In the end, the results held up.
“If you go looking for these breakthroughs they
never seem to happen, you sort of have to stumble on one,” Xing says with a
smile. “This was purely luck; we kind of discovered it, to our surprise.”
The unique nano-thin layer of polymer coated
biocarbon on the cathode side of the lithium-sulfur battery helps stabilize the
chemistry inside batteries and increases their storage capacity. This
breakthrough is thanks to the multidisciplinary collaboration and culture at
Mines.
“This is the beauty of collaboration,” says Xing. “This
is something that would not happen at a bigger university where research is
more walled off,” says Ed Duke, Ph.D., a professor of geology and geological
engineering at Mines and director of the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium.
“This is how discovery is so often made,” Xing adds.
The grant,
thanks to NASA EPSCoR, allows researchers to continue to study this material
and optimize its potential in next generation batteries. Other faculty who will
take part in this research at Mines include Alevtina Smirnova, Ph.D., a professor of chemical and
biological engineering and Tula Paudel, Ph.D., assistant
professor of physics. The grant also brings in NASA researchers who will work
alongside those at Mines and others like Haoran Sun, Ph.D., a professor of
chemistry at University of South Dakota.
“There is something of a critical mass on energy
research going on at this campus and in the state,” says Duke. “We’ve been
collaborating with those at the University of South Dakota, and, thanks to this
grant, we are being joined by those at NASA to continue this research.”
Xing says future research will work on other
challenges with these batteries including reducing their flammability and
continuing to optimize capacity. He has several graduate and undergraduate
students already working in his state-of-the-art lab on campus.
“We are very excited to work on this very advanced
lithium-sulfur battery technology,” he says.
Xing adds there is immense commercialization
potential in this technology. Shende’s graduate students, Huynh and Maddipudi, are already
working on one avenue of commercialization and job creation from one
version of this product. The broad range of applications could include everything
from large-scale energy storage for power plants to national defense, along
with multiple uses in everyday life from cell phones to electric cars. Thanks
to NASA, those future applications also include space travel.
“It’s nice to think that someday material derived
from South Dakota corn stalks might be part of the batteries on NASA space
missions,” says Duke.