The 20 projects were selected from a TIP competition announced on 26 March 2009, seeking projects addressing two broad areas of national interest: the practical application of advanced materials including nanomaterials, advanced alloys and composites in manufacturing; and the monitoring or retrofit of major public infrastructure systems, including water systems, dams and levees, and bridges, roads and highways.

The goals for advancing new nanomaterials were detailed in a white paper, “Accelerating the Incorporation of Materials Advances into Manufacturing Processes”. The goals for the civil infrastructure technology were detailed in a white paper, “Advanced Sensing Technologies and Advanced Repair Materials for the Infrastructure: Water Systems, Dams, Levees, Bridges, Roads, and Highways”.

Silicon Nanowire Production for Advanced Lithium-Ion Batteries. The 2-year project will receive a TIP contribution of $3 million; total estimated project cost is $6 million.

Amprius, Inc., is working to develop a unique, high-throughput, continuous manufacturing process for producing a novel, nanostructured silicon-based anode material for lithium batteries. Higher energy density batteries would have a major impact on the development of electric vehicles by extending driving range and lowering costs.

Silicon offers more than 10 times the theoretical energy storage capacity of carbon, today’s state of the art anode material, suggesting that batteries built with silicon-based anodes could offer significant increases in energy density, corresponding to better driving range and run-time in consumer electronics.

Conventional approaches to utilize silicon in batteries have been unsuccessful. Lithium ion insertion causes silicon to swell up to 400% when charged. This swelling causes bulk silicon structures to fracture, diminishing battery life after just a few cycles. Structured as nanowires, however, Silicon is able to swell without breaking.

Amprius has demonstrated anodes made of silicon nanowires that are tolerant of strains and can expand and contract without breaking for hundreds of cycles. A practical battery with a silicon nanowire anode could increase the energy density of today’s lithium batteries by 40%, even at realistic levels of material utilization.

Amprius currently makes silicon nanowires in a small-scale batch process using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a process borrowed from the semiconductor industry. Mass consumer applications would require a far more efficient and low-cost manufacturing technique. The company hopes for a 1000-fold scale up of manufacturing capability, and the current project will explore two potential paths towards a large-scale process to produce silicon nanowire anodes “by the mile.”

After initial feasibility studies, the most promising approach will be developed. If successful, the process will represent the first continuous roll-to-roll process to deposit three-dimensional silicon-based nanostructures. In addition to the manufacture of advanced batteries, this continuous throughput technology would very likely benefit other industries including solar photovoltaic, energy storage and solid-state lighting industries.

High Volume Production Of Nanocomposite Electrode Materials For Lithium-Ion Batteries. This 3-year, $6-million project is requesting $2.864 million in TIP funds.

A123Systems, Inc. is developing a new nanocomposite material for lithium-ion battery electrodes together with improved manufacturing process technologies to enable both significantly improved battery performance and lower manufacturing costs.

A123Systems has an existing iron-phosphate nanocomposite electrode material that has enjoyed commercial success and is commonly used in batteries for cordless power tools, among other applications. The current project pursues a novel second-generation nanomaterial that would replace some or all of the iron with manganese, increasing the battery’s energy density and therefore reducing cost per watt-hour.

This project also will develop a number of improvements to the manufacturing process used to make the nanoparticles which should result in a threefold increase in manufacturing throughput. Since capital equipment and facilities are primary factors in the cost of electrode materials, increasing throughput offers the best leverage for cost reduction.

The ultimate goal of the project is to scale up from 10 grams per lab batch to more than 10 kilograms per day production in a quasi-continuous pilot demonstration.

Other projects selected for TIP funding are: