HighT-Tech's Battery Technologies
Materials
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Record high-performance membrane (dense, thin, high ionic conductivity)
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Ionic powder with precisely-controlled composition and particle size
Devices
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Interface free integration of different layers by HighT-Tech’s rapid sintering
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Solid state batteries for EV and Grid storage
Partnership
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Unlock your battery materials through HighT-Tech’s UHS processes
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Manufacturing and IPs.
Solid State Batteries and Manufacturing Challenges
Compared to organic liquid electrolyte-based Li-ion batteries, solid-state batteries have tremendous potential, including the use of Li metal (the holy grail anode), high voltage cathodes, a high-energy density (400 Wh/kg or higher), wide temperature tolerance (both high and low temperature), and improved safety.
However, there are still major challenges in commercializing solid-state batteries:
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Highly dense solid-state ion conductive membranes without pinholes;
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Integration of the solid-state layers into a functional device with precise interface controls (i.e., particle-particle and
electrode-electrolyte); -
Rapid manufacturing at low cost.
It is widely reported that dendrite formation still occurs through solid-state electrolytes, shorting the battery.
It is also a challenge to manufacture high-quality solid-state electrolyte powders, a critical step for large scale production
of solid-state electrolyte membranes.
The current commercial cathode manufacturing process is the co-precipitation method, which is energy- and carbon intensive, with extensive use of wet chemicals.
Li dendrite through solid-state electrolyte (credit to Electrochimica Acta)
Li Conductive Solid State Membrane by UHS
The UHS sintering process can address all of these challenges.
The high temperature enables liquid sintering by melting the precursors, leading to a high density of membranes.
Unlike current solid-state electrolyte sintering, the pressureless sintering of UHS without the need of a powder bed can enable (semi-) continuous manufacturing.
Large Li-ion Conducting Membrane
Dense Electrolyte
The high density and well-controlled microstructure of UHS solid-state electrolytes allow Li-Li cycling with a record high current density and cumulative capacity.
Fast lithium metal anode cycling
The rapid UHS sintering allows the co-sintering of bilayer solid-state electrolytes for the first time, extending the voltage window toward high-energy density solid-state batteries.
No interfacial diffusion
UHS Enable (Semi) continuous Manufacturing at a Low Cost
Traditional furnace sintering takes more than 10 hours to achieve a sufficient density; as a result, a powder bed is needed to avoid Li loss during the prolonged sintering process. To meet global energy storage needs, billions of square meters of solid-state electrolytes are needed. Traditional sintering simply cannot meet the manufacturing need.
HTT-Tech scales up the membrane manufacturing through two routes:
(1) Ink based continuous printed electrolyte
(2) Tape casting based semi-continuous sintering
Printed solid electrolyte
Flexible ink printed coating
Tape casting processed coating
Interface-free solid-state Li-ion batteries
No interfacial diffusion
No interfacial diffusion
Interfacial diffusion
A solid-state Li-ion battery has a multilayer structure. The layers need to be physically/chemically connected for ion/electron transport.
A major challenge in furnace sintering is interlayer diffusion during the prolonged heating process, which leads to a thick newly-formed interlayer that features huge resistance.
UHS sintering allows rapid interface sintering between two layers, with the heating process stopped before interlayer diffusion occurs (interface free with a small interfacial resistance).
High-Performance Low-Cost Na-ion Conductors
UHS, with its well-controlled heating time and temperature, allows for rapid process optimization for sintering existing Na-ion conductors, with a much higher density, better microstructure (grains and grain boundaries) than those by furnace sintering, and high yield that enables solid-state Na-ion batteries without shorting and scalable manufacturing.
The sodium ion membrane demonstrates the
record-high current cycling without cell shorting.
Dense electrolyte
Beta-alumina with a record-high density
10 um
Low Cost Solid State Sodium-Ion Batteries
The abundance of Na to Li in the earth's crust is 23600 ppm to 20 ppm.
It is also significant cheaper to extract and purify Na than that of Li.
We aim to develop and manufacture low-cost solid state sodium ion batteries and interface-free integrations, with a cost of <$50/kWh.
Electrolyte and Electrode Powders
The UHS process allows the rapid sintering of high-performance particles with tailored size distributions from nanometers to micrometers, including solid state electrolytes and electrodes. Compared to other synthesis methods, the UHS process has the following advantages:
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Rapid continuous processes
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Suppress Li loss to ensure the composition control
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Tune the particle size on demand
Electrolyte powder
Electrode powder
Batteries recycling for Circular Economy
HighT-Tech direct recycling process
Current wet processing for recycling
Battery recycling is an important long-term requirement in the EV and energy storage markets to “close the loop“ and reduce the CO2 footprint.
With the electrified heating process, we have developed innovative steps for direct battery materials recycling, which addresses the unmet needs in the battery recycling industry.
Our technology enables the recovery of battery materials without completely breaking down the chemical compounds, which significantly reduces the usage of hazardous chemicals and energy consumption compared to current industrial wet processes.
