Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

First Advisor

Da Deng

Abstract

Increase in all electric and hybrid car sales from Electric drive transportation association show that Lithium-ion batteries stands as a promising option for these vehicles. Hence improving these batteries is the objective of this thesis. We try to improve the electrode material by using unique structures and coating carbon layers on the material.

We chose Zinc tin oxide (ZTO) as it has been shown in literature to be a good oxide for batteries. We tried improving it by making new Rubik-cube like microstructure of it and more interestingly coating a layer of carbon on it. We could show from our experiments that the carbon layer is around 10nm and has an effect on the battery performance.

The ZTO/SnO2 has a capacity of 400mAh/g after 20 cycles and the same material after carbon coating layer has around 550mAh/g after 20 cycles which shows a clear improvement in the one with carbon coating. Then we were able to discover a unique structure of ZTO which to our knowledge has been produced first time. This has a capacity of around 400mAh/g after 20 cycles.

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