Title: Nano-porous copper metal foam current collector in lithium ion batteries

Name: Yihua Wang, Yuan Chen, Huajun Feng

School of Engineering, Republic Polytechnic, 9 Woodlands Avenue 9, Singapore 738964

Porous-structure foam may cause transport changes of chemical materials, selectivity changes of function group, and so on. Nano-porous metal foams have been a long sought-after class of materials in the quest for high-surface-area conductive and catalytic materials. In lithium ion battery field, nano-porous structuring of electrodes for electrochemical energy storage (batteries) makes high power battery with ultra-fast charging/discharging properties in one minute possible, due to being high-surface-area favorable for fast transport of Li+ and more tolerate of shape deformation when charging/discharging.

Turning block metals into three-dimensional nano-porous foams in a low-cost and scalable way keeps being a significant challenge. There are several well-established approaches for preparing nano-porous metal thin films: most notably through de-alloying, recently through deposition of metals on nanostructured templates, and laser etching, etc. However, these approaches are complicated and/or involve expensive equipment. In this paper, we report a low-cost and scalable ultrasonic chemistry synthetic method for producing nano-porous metal copper foams and their electrochemical performance as current collector in lithium batteries. Distributions of nano-pores on the copper surface and synthetic mechanism are presented and discussed.

Biography

Dr Wang Yihua received his Ph.D degree from National University of Singapore in 2002. He is a Senior Lecturer in School of Engineering of Republic Polytechnic, Singapore. Dr Wang has been working on semiconductor process and energy storage technology such as hydrogen generation, PEM fuel cells and Li ion batteries for more than 15 years. His research interests include surface science and engineering, nano-meter sized materials growth and characterization, energy storage technology and nano devices fabrication.

Presenting author details
Full name: Yihua Wang
Contact number: +65 66971058
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Sessionname/ number: Nanotechnology in Advance Batteries
Category: (Oral presentation/ Poster presentation)