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Ambient Temperature Superionic Conducting Salt Including Metal Cation and Borate Anion or Carborate Anion and Process for Making Ambient Temperature Superionic Conducting Salt
Patent Number: 10,553,897
Patent Description
Today’s batteries contain flammable, toxic, liquid electrolytes. Therefore, safer all-solid-state batteries are a current research goal. This requires solid-electrolyte materials with high ionic mobilities, high chemical and electrochemical stabilities, and good formability. The status-quo solid-electrolyte materials have various shortcomings. NIST has developed a novel solid superionic conductor material to satisfy the current lack of suitable electrolytes for incorporation into next-generation all-solid-state energy devices.
These materials combine Li+, Na+, or other cations with large polyhedral borate and/or carbaborate anions to form a new class of ionic salt compounds that can exhibit superionic conductivities in their disordered salt phases. Using treatment strategies that involve particle-size reduction and compound mixing, NIST is able to create modified materials that remain in their superionic state at all temperatures. They can be used as fast-ion solid electrolytes in all-solid-state batteries. They possess favorable electrochemical and thermal stability while also displaying relatively high ionic conductivities at technically relevant device temperatures. These new materials could be gamechangers.
Invention
A process for making a superionic conducting salt includes: combining a primary salt and an impact member, the primary salt including an ordered phase and being an ionic conductor; impacting the primary salt with the impact member; and converting the primary salt to the superionic conducting salt in response to impacting the primary salt with the impact member at a conversion temperature to make the superionic conducting salt, the conversion temperature optionally being less than a thermally activated transition temperature that thermally converts the primary salt to the superionic conducting salt in an absence of the impacting the primary salt, and the superionic conducting salt including a superionic conductive phase in a solid state at less than the thermally activated transition temperature.
Features
Simple and easy to process.