Case 14172

Catalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Evolution in Li-AIR Batteries

Keywords:

Electrocatalysis, lithium battery, oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution, metal-air battery

Applications:

Lithium-air battery for energy storage

Problem:

Rechargeable Li-air battery performance with aprotic organic electrolytes is limited by cathode kinetics and the effect of catalysts on the reaction kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) during discharge and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) during charging in rechargeable Li-air batteries using organic electrolytes is poorly understood, hindering the progress of this technology.

Technology:

This invention revealed the strong influences of carbon, Au/C, and Pt/C catalysts on the charge and discharge voltages of rechargeable Li-O2 batteries. Li-O2 single-cell measurement showed that Au/C had the highest discharge activity while Pt/C exhibited extraordinarily high charging activity.

Advantages:

The findings of this study are in good agreement with oxidative current densities obtained from potentiostatic measurements of Li/Li2O2cells, reflecting the activity associated with electro-oxidation of LbO2 on these catalysts.

Inventors:
  • Professor Yang Shao-Horn(Department of Mechanical Engineering)
  • Professor Hubert A Gasteiger (Department of Mechanical Engineering)
  • Yi-chun Lu (Department of Material Sciences and Engineering)

Intellectual Property:

US Patent Application Number 13/098653, filed on May 2, 2011

Publications:

Electrochemical and Solid State Letters, Volumn 13, Issue 6, pp. A69-A72 (2010)

Related Cases:

14330: Stacked Controlled-Cell Power Conversion Architecture for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems

14615: Aligned Carbon Nanofiber/Nanotube Electrodes for Energy Storage Devices

Last revised: April 29, 2013

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