Three-dimensional (3D) battery architectures have the advantage to achieve large areal energy capacities without sacrificing power density. Mature Liion battery technology consisting of conventional graphite and LiCoO2 electrodes has reached the limit of its performance. It can be engineered to provide 250 Wh/kg practical specific energy, from a theoretical limit of approximately 530 Wh/kg. Moderate increases in electrode energy chemistry using new materials such as Si nanowire anodes and a composite cathode high-energy technology can incrementally increase the energy storage in a practical device, but are lower in power density. We hypothesize that a nanoengineered system built from the bottom-up with new chemistries will ensure that an increase in specific energy and much higher power densities will result.

In this presentation, we will discuss and highlight various types of synthesized nanoarchitectures for electrode materials. All electrodes prepared in this work were composed of nanoscale objects and did not use any carbon diluents or electrode binders typically used in particulate batteries and yet they achieved excellent electrical conductivity that was manifested in higher electrode specific capacities and energy.