High Capacity Planar Supercapacitors and Lithium Ion Batteries by Modular Manufacturing Novel planar supercapacitors (SC) and lithium ion batteries (LIB) having interdigitated electrodes for large format applications will be presented. We will discuss the design principles of the new planar structures, their potential to give > 5X improvement in capacity over current supercapacitors, their pack designs, as well as low cost fabrication by modular manufacturing. The drawings given in the following link depict the plan view (top) and the cross-sectional view (bottom) of a planar LIB, wherein the dotted and the hatched areas are the positive and the negative electrodes respectively; the gray areas are the current collectors and the gray lines are the grid lines. Unlike the known interdigitated thin film microsupercapacitor design where the current collectors are situated on the top or bottom surfaces of the electrodes and paralleled to the plane of the substrate and can only exert limited weak fringe fields, the current collectors in our new design are running along the sidewalls of the electrodes and are perpendicular to the substrate and can thus provide strong direct fields, as indicated by the purple arrow, to promote facile ion movement across the entire thickness of the electrodes (20-100 µm). In addition, the relatively narrow inter-spaces between two opposite electrodes (20-100 µm) may allow much higher power densities than ever. Due to their scalability and low cost modular manufacturing processes by printing, the new planar SC/LIB may be designed for a wide range of applications such as mobile devices, transportation, and grid and distributed energy storage. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7fDeNQTYRc9VDdOTTVYRmh2QWc/view?usp=sharing

1. High Capacity Planar Supercapacitors
and Lithium-Ion Batteries by
Modular Manufacturing
Bing Hsieh
Founder
Dec. 14, 2017

2. Various Form Factors of LIBs

3. A Typical sandwich-SC Cell Assembly
Positive Pole
Negative Pole
Separator
Carbon Electrode
Current Collector
Carbon Electrode
Safety Vent
Sealing Disk
Aluminum Can

4. Breaking Down Tesla Model S
85kWh Battery Pack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-_Q8urTqyo
Panasonic 18650 cell (18mmx65mm): 3400 mAh at 3.6 or 3.7V
Group (74 cells in parallel): 74x3.4x3.6 = 0.90 kWh, 230 Ah (74x3.4=251.6 Ah ) , 4.1 V (3.6 V)
Module (6 groups in series): 230 Ah @ 25.2 V (4.1x6 = 24.6 V) 444 cell/module
Pack (16 Modules in series): 230Ah @ 403 V (25.2x16 = 403.2 V)
74x6x16 = 7104 cell total
Pack capacity= 7104x3.4x3.6= 86.95 kWh
Range: 259 miles (415km)
Model 3 using 21700 cells
Has only 75kWh capacity
Range: 215 miles (345km)

5. Tesla Model S 85kWh Battery Back
Each Pack has 16 Modules in series

6. Lithium Ion Batteries (LIB) vs Supercapacitors
Parameters LIBs SCs
Working Principle Electrochemical Electrostatic
Operating Voltage (V) 3.6-3.8 2.3-3.0
Specific Energy (Wh/kg) 100-265 5-10
Energy Density (Wh/L) 250-675 7-15
Cost/kWh ($) 500 10K
Specific Power (W/kg) 250-340 5000-10,000
Cycle Life (cycles) 1K 1M
Cost/kWh/Cycle (ȼ) 7 0.6
Calendar Life (yrs) 5 >10
Charging time 1-10 hrs <10 sec
self-discharge rate (%) 7% per month 1% per hr
Operating Temperature range (oC) -20 - 65 -40 - 85
Safety & Sustainability -ve +ve
Applications EV, 3C, stationary
energy storage
Buses, Trains, Start-
Stop Systems in EV

7. Cost of LIBs
DOE cost
target of
$150/kWh
in ~2030
2014
Nissan Leaf
@ $270/kWh
2016
Tesla Model 3
@ $100-150/kWh
Tesla Gigafactory 1
35GWh in 2020
Worldwide
174GWh in 2020

10. iPhone Processing speed grows 700%/yr
Battery capacity grows <5%/yr
Extreme slowness and uncertainty in materials development

11. Never Enough Energy Storage!!
Two approaches to boost performance and
lower the cost of energy storage devices
• New Materials R&D:
(1) High Capacity Cathodes and Anodes:
S (1670mAh/g); O2 (>3300 mAh/g, light oxygen) and Li (3860 mAh/g) or Si (4200 mAh/g)
(2) Solid Polymer Electrolytes - Safer, cost reduction through simplified packaging, could
suppress dendrite formation, and enable the use of Li metal; but need to operate at 50-90oC
• New Devices Designs: 3D batteries, Planar batteries & SC
Extremely Expensive!

12. Never Enough Energy Storage!!
Two approaches to boost performance and
lower the cost of energy storage devices
• New Materials R&D:
(1) High Capacity Cathodes and Anodes:
S (1670mAh/g); O2 (>3300 mAh/g, light oxygen) and Li (3860 mAh/g) or Si (4200 mAh/g)
(2) Solid Polymer Electrolytes - Safer, cost reduction through simplified packaging, could
suppress dendrite formation, and enable the use of Li metal; but need to operate at 50-90oC
• New Devices Designs: 3D batteries, Planar batteries & SC
An elegant idea;
but the in situ electropolymerized materials will not work well.

13. Thick Semi-solid Electrode Design
A planar battery with large area and thick semi-solid electrodes
• Made by a simpler, space efficient, low-cost modular manufacturing approach (??).
• A cost reduction of 50% has been projected.
What started out as a new device concept ended up becoming a materials project
Because “semi-solid electrode materials” need to be developed.

14. Sandwich SC vs planar MSC
Carbon Materials: Activated carbon, Graphene
C ∝ 𝑡2
Commercialized In Development
t2 = 10 nm - 7 µm
We = 100-300µm; Ws = 20-70µmt1 = 20 - 200 µm; ts = 20-30µm

15. It Doesn't Have to be Graphene?!
X100 ↑ !?
20Wh/kg; 30Wh/L
• Electrophoretically deposited binder-free C electrode layer (5-7µm).
• # electrodes: 16; Electrode W = 220 µm; L=4.5mm; Interspace = 100 µm.
• Electrolyte: 1.0 M Et4N-BF4/PC
Pech, D et al. Nature Nanotechnology 5, 651–654 (2010)
Can these planar MSCs be scaled up?

16. Direct Field vs. Fringe Field
DF
DF
Fringe Field is much weaker than Direct Field.
This makes the above planar MSC design not scalable
DFDF
Strong Direct Field
Weak
Fringe
Field

17. 20 - 200 µm
Conventional sandwich supercapacitor
DirectField
DirectField
Design Considerations for New Planar Supercap having
Substrate
+ - + -Direct FieldDirect Field
>> 7 m
When the thickness of the carbon
electrodes becomes much thicker than
7 µm, the weak fringe fields can no
longer drive ion movement through out
the entire thickness. In other words, the
current design is not scalable.
DF
10-100 m
100-200 m 20-50 m
Vertical sidewall current collectors can provide direct field to drive ion movement across the thickness of the thick carbon electrodes
And thus enable the scalability of the interdigitated electrode design
Current
Collector
<7 µm
A planar microsupercapacitors with
interdigitated electrodes.
Dash curves denote weak fringe fields.
DF

18. Specific Energy
(Wh/kg)
Energy Density
(Wh/L)
18650 LIB (commercial) 200 500
Thin Film LIBs (commercial) 0.01 0.025
Going from thick to thin, energy capacity drops by more than X105 !!
Maxwell 2.85V DuraBlue (Commercial) 7.7
Planar MSC (Experimental) 20 30
Going from thick to thin planar MSC, energy capacity more than double!
Energy Capacity Data LIB vs MLIB and SC vs MSC
Such an improvement in energy density in the thin film planar MSC could be
attributed to much increased electrode surface area in planar interdigitated design.

19. Substrate
+ - + -
- + -
+
_
+
New Planar SC Design vertical CC
(US20160133396A1, 10/17/2015)
• With the vertical CC design, achieving > 5X improvement in energy capacities are possible .
• The screen printed graphene platelets may preferentially lay flat on the substrate, ie
vertically oriented wrt the CC. The resulting SC could show AC line-filtering effect.
DF

20. A Planar LIB Design with Vertical Side-Wall CC
+= LiCoO2; LiFePO4 etc.; - = Graphitic Anode Materials
Substrate
+ - + -
+ - + -
+
_
DF

21. Modular Fabrication Processes
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes

22. Modular Fabrication Processes
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes
3. Laser Scribed
Carbon Electrodes
2+3. Screen Printed
Carbon Electrode
L: 1 -15 mm
W: 100-200 µm
IS = 20-50µm
Number of interdigital fingers : > 20
Pech, D. et al, Journal of Power Sources 230 (2013) 230-235

23. Modular Fabrication Process
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes
3. Laser Scribed
Carbon Electrodes
2+3. Screen Printed
Carbon Electrode
4. Print Grid Lines

24. Modular Fabrication Processes
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes
3. Laser Scribed
Carbon Electrodes
2+3 Screen Printed
Carbon Electrode
4. Print Grid Lines
5. Print Current
Collectors

25. Cross Sectional Views of Planar SC with
Vertical Sidewall Current Collectors
 50mm 
50 – 100 µm
+ -
100-200µm
20-50µm
0.4-0.5 mm

26. Modular Fabrication Processes
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes
3. Laser Scribed
Carbon Electrodes
2+3 Screen Printed
Carbon Electrode
4. Print Grid Lines
5. Print Current
Collectors
6. Print Barrier Bars

27. Modular Fabrication Processes
60mm
50mm
1. Substrate
2. Screen Printed
Carbon Stripes
3. Laser Scribed
Carbon Electrodes
2+3 Screen Printed
Carbon Electrode
4. Print Grid Lines
5. Print Current
Collectors
6. Print Barrier Bars
7. Install Series
Connectors
8. Add Electrolyte
If ea group is 1.5 V,
ea module is 4.5 V.
Modular level processing/packaging will greatly reduce the cost

28. A Similar Design
Block-SC Based on rGO
(US20160133395, 9/21/2014)
rGO
Laser
Scribing
Epoxy
Coating
Current
Collector
Sputtering, CVD, plating,
screen printing, casting,
film/plate/block attachment
Laser
Scribing

29. Block-SC Based on rGO
(US20160133395, 9/21/2014)
Potential Problems and limitation:
• A modular level processing with low throughputs.
• Electrical field aligns with the electrode fingers instead of across between fingers
+ -+ +--
• Electrode Height: µm to cm
• Length: ~1.5 mm
• Width: ~80 µm
• Interspacing < 20 µm

30. Our Path Forward
Adapting & modifying existing manufacturing infrastructures
1. Identify a company to formulate activated carbon inks,
cathode and anode inks for screen printing. (ON Going)
2. Identify a screen printing company, including solar panel
manufacturers, to fabricate planar SC. (DONE)
3. Identify a battery company for assembling, packaging, and
testing. (DONE)

31. Summary
• The new interdigitated electrode design having vertical side-wall
current collectors could enable large format SCs.
• We project that a >5X increase in capacity (~50 Wh/kg) over current
SC is likely.
• The new design has been extended to LIBs.
• The new planer design could enable true low cost, modular
manufacturing for both SC and LIB: May be >2X reduction in cost.
Thank you very much