Preparation and multifunctional performance of carbon fiber‐reinforced plastic composites for laminated structural batteries

Abstract

This research focuses on the simultaneous maintenance of mechanical and electrochemical properties of laminated structural batteries (LSBs), using co‐continuous structural electrolytes and carbon fiber‐reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites. A comparison is made between the electrochemical performance of LSB encapsulated by glass fabric composites and those directly integrated into coin cells. The electrochemical properties of LSB with different lay‐up configurations are evaluated using charge/discharge cycling, and tensile/bending tests were carried out to evaluate their mechanical properties. The effect of lay‐up configurations on the multifunctional performance of LSB is also investigated. The results show that the self‐designed encapsulating method improves the load‐carrying capacity of batteries while sacrificing some electrochemical properties. The multifunctional performances of LSB having a CFRP composite anode with [0]2 lay‐up is the best among the four structures with different lay‐up configurations. Although further research is required to improve the electrochemical properties of LSB, the proposal and verification of this new encapsulating method are a significant contribution in the development of LSB.

Effects of cathode doping on 3D printed continuous carbon fiber structural battery composites by UV-assisted coextrusion deposition

“…It is worth noting that the measured mechanical properties are comparable to those of carbon fiber based structural battery composites fabricated by conventional lay-up processes. 8,23,66–69 This well demonstrates that the proposed 3D printing method can be used to fabricate functional battery composites for structural applications. It is believed that further improvement in SPE-coated fiber volume fraction and cathode doped matrix material would help enhance the mechanical performance obtained by the proposed 3D printing method.…”

“…27 These values were comparable to those measured for carbon fiber based structural batteries fabricated by conventional lay-up processes. 8,23,66–69 Combined with the flexibility in preparing complex geometry composite parts, it well demonstrated the potentials of the proposed 3D printing technique in fabricating structural battery composites with carbon fibers. With each SPE-coated carbon fiber dispersed in the cathode doped matrix and working as a micro-battery cell, the corresponding dramatic intercalation surface area between electrolyte and active materials 6,45 can potentially help the 3D structural battery composite achieve higher energy density and specific capacities with further improvement of the 3D printing process.…”

Structural Batteries: A Review

“…This cell showed, however, a poor cycling stability, and its specific capacity was just 25 mA h/g, about one-tenth of the traditional liquid batteries with the same electrodes. In a more recent study, Zhao et al [ 87 ] used the same technique to assemble laminated structural batteries with a layup configuration. A biphasic electrolyte based on EMIM-TFSI and LiTFSI salts was used to impregnate a 0.23 mm plain-weave T300 fabric used as the anode.…”

Experimental and computational characterization of carbon fibre based structural battery electrode laminae

“…A viable route to create efficient lightweight multifunctional components for future electric vehicle and devices is to utilize structural materials with ability to storage energy (e.g. work as battery) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. One such solution exploits electrode laminae consisting of carbon fibres embedded in structural battery electrolyte (SBE).…”