Theoretical and Experimental Performance Characterization of Battery Anodes Comprised of Coal Derived Graphite

Abstract

As demand for energy storage expands, securing reliable supply-chains for raw battery materials is critical in mitigating the threats of delayed manufacturing and inflated manufacturing costs. These issues have pushed researchers and industry to consider alternative sources for traditional lithium-ion battery materials, such as graphite. Commonly available sources of graphite for Li-ion anodes include natural graphite and petroleum coke derived synthetic graphite. While many carbon sources have been studied, most require complicated processing and result in sub-par graphite anode materials. This talk highlights raw coal and coal derived materials as promising graphite sources thanks to their abundance of sp2 hybridized carbon, resulting in simpler processing, and low material costs.We show that coal derived graphite can be implemented as a lithium-ion anode, however, many chemical, microstructural, and morphological considerations are necessary to compare with commercial graphite performance. We will experimentally compare the morphology at the microstructure for graphite from various carbon sources, and then apply the virtual microstructure analysis method as detailed by Lopata et al to quantify potential differences between the anode microstructures with respect to effective active material particle size (diffusion length calculation), the electrochemical surface area, and the tortuosity of the liquid phase domain. These calculations from representative 3D microstructures can then be extended to a porous electrode model as detailed in Garrick et al to probe the impact in ionic, kinetic, and ohmic losses in the system.References Joseph S. Lopata et al 2023 J. Electrochem. Soc. 170 020530Taylor R. Garrick et al 2021 J. Electrochem. Soc. 168 010530