Trinity College Dublin

Overview: As Ireland’s university on the world stage, Trinity is recognised for academic excellence and a transformative student experience. The historic campus is located in the heart of Dublin city centre at the meeting place of the retail and cultural districts. With a tradition of scholarship spanning more than four centuries, Trinity is home to talented and inquiring minds, a liberal education, and research conducted at the frontiers of disciplines.
Research: Trinity’s position as one of the world’s leading universities is defined by our research, scholarship, and capacity to address issues of global, societal and economic importance. Our strength lies in the breadth and excellence of our expertise; from individual-scholars and thought-leaders, to large multidisciplinary teams, each delivering research of national and global importance.
Trinity’s research themes address issues of immediate and long-term concern for society and offer opportunities for future economic development. They are supported by a set of research institutes that provide the infrastructure that is required to support multi-disciplinary research as well as partner engagement.
Industry Partnerships: Trinity is committed to supporting industry — from SMEs to MNCs, from short term projects to long term on-going collaborative projects. In a national or international context, we work collaboratively with industry stakeholders and agencies to share infrastructure and expertise, tackle industry relevant research challenges, problems, or address grand challenges.

<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
To meet trends such as the rise of electric vehicles, significant advances in the energy storage capability of batteries are urgently required. Most research has focused on the development of high-capacity electrode materials. This research optimizes electrode architecture to maximize the electrode areal capacity. Above a critical thickness, existing solution-processed particulate films have mechanical instabilities (i.e. they can crack) which leads to failure.
Researchers at TCD have used segregated carbon nanotube membranes to increase the maximum thickness of electrodes with increased mechanical stability. This allows for the increase of areal capacitance and, therefore, improves battery energy density.
<img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.in-part.com/technologies/figures/QQ37OP8ERdmWWro5iOK9_Picture12.png" alt="Figure 1" />
<ul>
<li>Extremely thick and high areal capacity battery composite electrodes enabled by the formation of segregated nanotube (CNT) networks.</li>
<li>A simple method to produce both high areal capacity anodes/cathodes from any high-performance materials (e.g. graphene-wrapped silicon nanoparticles and LiNixMnyCozO2).</li>
</ul>
Further Details:
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0398-y">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-019-0398-y</a>.
<h1 id="benefits">Benefits</h1>
<ul>
<li>Increased mechanical properties:<ul>
<li>Supresses mechanical instabilities</li>
<li>Allows the fabrication of electrodes with thicknesses of up to 800 μm</li>
<li>Improved stability to repeat charging cycles</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Very high conductivity.</li>
<li>Fast charge distribution within the electrodes.</li>
<li>Areal capacities of up to 45 and 30 mAh cm−2 for anodes and cathodes, respectively.</li>
<li>Full cells demonstrated with extremely high areal capacities (29 mAh cm-2) and energy densities (450 Wh kg-1).</li>
<li>Compatible with current industrial manufacturing process (slurry casting method)</li>
<li>Applicable to both Li and Na ion batteries.</li>
<li>Charge vs. speed of charge delivery can be tailored depending on application need.</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
Broad range of possible applications including electric vehicles, consumer electronics.
<h1 id="opportunity">Opportunity</h1>
<ul>
<li>Research collaboration</li>
<li>Available to License</li>
</ul>