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This thesis describes an investigation of some of the factors which govern the operation of the commercially important Li-SOCl2 cell. Electrode processes at lithium anodes and C-SOCl2 cathodes have been studied using the technique of Faradaic impedance. A kinetic interpretation of the results has been advanced. Additionally some aspects of the formation and nature of LiCl films, which frequently cover the anode surface have been revealed from the decomposition of the numerical data. The impedance study further yielded kinetic data relating to the lithium dissolution process. Complementary preliminary studies of the impedance of glassy carbon-SOCl2 cathodes have shown that the cathode process is complicated.

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This PhD work is dedicated to the discovery and study of new cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. To obtain new materials, a well-known strategy based on ion-exchanging alkali metals within stable crystalline frameworks was used. Ion-exchange procedures between sodium and lithium ions were performed on known sodiated materials, NaMnTiO4 with the Na0.44MnO2 structure and NaFeTiO4 and Na2Fe3-xSn2xSb1-xO8 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) with the calcium-ferrite structure. A combination of Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES), X-ray (XRD) and Neutron (NPD) diffractions was used to determine the crystal structure of the samples obtained via ion-exchange and confirmed that LiMnTiO4 and LiFeTiO4 and Li2Fe3-xSn2xSb1-xO8 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) were obtained with a 1:1 ion-exchange between sodium and lithium. LiMnTiO4 has the orthorhombic Pbam space group, with a = 9.074(5), b = 24.97(1) and c = 2.899(2) Å. The shapes and dimensions of the channels are modified compared to NaMnTiO4, with displaced alkali metal positions and occupancies. LiMnTiO4 was cycled vs Li and up to 0.89 lithium ions can be reversibly inserted into the structure, with a discharge capacity of 137 mAh/g after 20 cycles at C/20 and room temperature. At 60°C, all the lithium is removed at the end of the first charge at C/20, with subsequent cycles showing reversible insertion of 1.06 Li-ions when cycled between 1.5 and 4.6 V. The electrochemistry of calcium-ferrite LiFeTiO4 and Li2Fe3SbO8 was investigated in half cells versus lithium and up to 0.63 and 1.35 lithium ions can be reversibly inserted into the structure after 50 cycles at a C/5 rate, respectively. LiFeTiO4 showed good cyclability with no capacity fade observed after the second cycle while Li2Fe3SbO8 exhibited a constant capacity fade with a 60 % capacity retention after the 50th cycle. Doping Li2Fe3SbO8 with tin reduces the capacity. However, the capacity retention is significantly enhanced. For Li2Fe2.5Sb0.5SnO8 after 20 cycles at C/5, the capacity is stable and comparable with that observed for Li2Fe3SbO8 after the same number of cycles. Using ion-exchange procedures has allowed new metastable materials to be obtained which have the potential to be used as cathodes in lithium-ion batteries. Doping these families of materials with different atoms has been shown to improve their electrochemical performance. Ex situ XRD was used to demonstrate that the original structures of LiMnTiO4, LiFeTiO4 and Li2Fe3SbO8 are retained during cycling. The volume change observed for Li2Fe3SbO8 upon delithiation was particularly noteworthy with a small decrease of 0.9 % at the end of charge when cycled at C/100 and room temperature, indicating structural stability upon lithium insertion/de-insertion.

In recent years, LEV and hybrid has been gradually popularized due to the energy crisis and increasing environmental awareness. The prevalence of LEV is to use batteries to replace the power from the gasoline. Secondary lithium battery is a good option for LEV since it has the features of light weights, high power density, long life, low pollution, and works without memory effect. However, the safety is a concern for end-users with more and more recalls of lithium-ion batteries involving the explosions. The purpose of this research is to propose a systematic approach of battery safety device with an engineering design method. The analysis on the factors affecting the safety is prior to the objective of this study as to define the specification of the battery safety device. Then, substance-field analysis and standard is to improve the initial systematic model, and the solution is specified with the synthesis of morphological matrix. Under the safety test for batteries, the effectiveness and feasibility of protected device is eventually verified.

From the electrical engineering perspective, this thesis addresses the design and implementation of the conversion process from a hybrid electric to a full function electric vehicle (FFEV). The architecture selection process and main components of an electric vehicle (EV) are described, and an exhaustive literature review on the controller area network (CAN) is presented. The electrical and control system integration strategy is explained, along with the model-based algorithm programmed into the vehicle integration module (VIM). Emulating electronic control units (ECUs) from the original powertrain and controlling additional ones for the electrical drivetrain through CAN bus, along with keeping the same functionalities of a typical production vehicle makes this vehicle conversion similar to a factory built model. Finally, the tests and results originating from this conversion to a full electric powertrain are discussed. The vehicle features a 83.5 kWh Li-ion battery built in-house, resulting in an estimated range of 482 km.

Chemical reactions can be understood as transitions from basin to basin on a high dimensional potential energy landscape. Varying temperature only changes the average kinetic energy of the system. While applying voltages or external pressures directly tilts the landscape and drives the reactions in desired directions. In solids at relatively low temperature, where the entropy term is approximately invariant, the reaction spontaneity is determined by the energy difference between the reactant and product basins and the reaction rate can be calculated from the barriers in between. To achieve sufficient accuracy to explain experimental observations we are interested in, density functional theory (DFT) is usually employed to calculate energies. There are two types of reactions I have studied: the first type of reaction only involves a few number of individual atoms, corresponding to traveling in a small volume in the high dimensional configuration space; the other type involves a large amount of atoms moving in a concerted pattern, and the distance traveled in the configuration space is significantly longer. The scopes of these two in the energy landscapes are in different scales and thus proper metrics for distance measurements are required. In the first case, I have mainly studied Li/Na behaviors in the cathode materials of secondary batteries. Here resolving the energy landscape step by step with detailed information is possible and useful. By analyzing the energy landscapes with DFT plus the Hubbard U correction, I have explained several phenomena related to the degradation of lithium-rich layered oxides, rate performance of surface modified LiFePO₄, and capacity of vanadium-based fluorophosphates. Predictions on both thermodynamic and kinetic properties of materials are also made based on the calculation results and some are confirmed by experiments. In the second case, my focus is on solid-solid phase transitions. With a tremendous long reaction pathway, examining every possible atomic step is too expensive. By adopting periodic boundary conditions, a small supercell can represent the main feature of the energy landscape in a coarse grained way, where the connection between phases is easier to explore. After the big picture of a phase transition mechanism learned from this simplified model, details along the reaction pathway, like new phase nucleation and growth, could be resolved by using a larger supercell. In the above treatment, two types of variables, the cell vectors and atomic positions, span a generalized configuration space. Special consideration is required to balance these two to keep consistency under different supercells and avoid biases. A solid-state NEB (SSNEB) and a solid-state dimer (SSD) method are then developed to locate saddle points in the generalized configuration space. With the methodology well justified, we are able to efficiently find possible nucleation mechanisms, for examples the CdSe rock salt to wurtzite and Mo A15 to BCC phase transitions. SSNEB is also applied in studying phases transitions under pressures, including the graphite to diamond, and CaIrO₃ perovskite to post-perovskite transitions. Combined with the adaptive kinetic Monte Carlo (AKMC) algorithm, SSD shows the ability to find new polymorphs of CdSe and the connecting barriers between them. / text

Nowadays, low carbon economy becomes a significant topic over the world. Due to the decreasing amount of fossil energy source and the worsening environmental pollution, traditional energy sources should be transferred to renewable energy sources. A transition to renewable energy will require radical changes to systems and technologies for energy storage. Lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries are now considered as the most important electrochemical energy source for portable devices, electrical vehicles and expected to be used in grid electrical energy storage. Beside on Li-ion batteries, sodium ion (Na-ion) batteries are another promising energy source, which have the advantages in cost, safety and environmental factors, and they could be used for stationary energy storage systems and large vehicles. Tin-based nanocomposites are promising to replace the traditional graphite for Li-ion batteries to achieve a higher battery performance. In 2005, Sony Corporation launched the first Sn-based anode Li-ion batteries (Nexelion) to obtain a 50% increase in volumetric capacity over the conventional battery, which marked Li-ion batteries to enter into a new cutting edge. However, Sn-based materials faced with challenges. The battery performance was limited by a low cycling life and low rate performance, and methods should be devised to overcome these shortcomings. In this thesis, SnO2-based nanocomposites, including the graphene-SnO2, the carbon-coated graphene-SnO2 and the carbon-coated nanostructured SnO2 have been prepared and investigated as anodes for Li-ion and Na-ion batteries. The microstructure, electrochemical performances and even the degradation mechanisms have been investigated as the effects for different composite materials. Chapter 4 reports an amorphous carbon coated graphene-SnO2 composite which exhibited an enhanced cycling stability. In previous researches, the performance enhancements of that type of materials were commonly attributed to the carbon coating enhancing the electronic conductivity. However, it is found that the carbon coating deeply relates to the microstructure stability of the active materials, the performance enhancement can be attributed to the enhancement of structural stability. Chapter 5 reports same composites with various graphene to amorphous carbon mass ratios. In this chapter, we try to find out the optimized composition and understanding the different roles of graphene and amorphous carbon in that type of composites. It is found that an optimised graphene to carbon mass ratio can effectively enhance the structural stability and the electrode conductivity. Chapter 6 reports a carbon-coated flower-like nanostructured SnO2 for Na-ion battery application, which has been demonstrated to have a high reversible capacity and high rate performance. The carbon coating is found to help in the formation of a high quality solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer on the surface of the active materials. These researches focus on modifying SnO2 and SnO2-based materials by carbon coating technologies, which aim to develop novel electrode materials to obtain a better battery performance for Li-ion and Na-ion batteries.