Li Metal Protection for High Energy Space Batteries

NOHMs Technologies proposes to develop a novel ionic liquid electrolyte formulation developed for the Lithium-Sulfur chemistry that can protect the lithium metal and has demonstrated superior performance and safety characteristics with the potential to offer 600 Wh/kg on the cell level. For this NASA Phase I project, NOHMs Technologies will optimize our proprietary ionic liquid electrolyte and demonstrate how the electrolyte provides safe, non-flammable high-energy performance and provides Li-metal protection. NOHMs will provide full cell data and analysis to demonstrate the feasibility of our system to meet NASA's 'Far Term Mission' specific energy and energy density goals. The battery technology under development by NOHMs is capable of delivering batteries with specific energies that are three times higher than today's state of the art Li-ion battery systems. For NASA missions, this can be translated into increased operational range, functionality, or payload capabilities and significantly reduced operational cost. NASA applications.

Advanced batteries are required for future space missions. These uses include batteries for astronaut equipment and EVA suits, crew exploration vehicles, in-space habitats, surface habitats, humanoid robots, landers, ISRU, ISS astronaut equipment, life support systems, and photovoltaic energy storage. Science Mission Directive missions include planetary probes, landers, rovers, and orbiters, all which require high energy, safe batteries. Advanced batteries with 2-3 X performance capability are required and will enable a number of future NASA space missions listed above. Successfully deployed safe lithium-sulfur batteries would result in significant mass and volume savings and operational flexibility. For example, Astronaut/EVA equipment require high specific energy rechargeable batteries (>500 Wh/kg, >1000 cycles) that are not readily available today; 2) Human habitat power systems will benefit significantly from batteries with large storage capability and high specific energy (>500 Wh/kg); 3) Human/robotic landers and rovers require high specific energy (>500 Wh/kg) and ultra low temperature rechargeable batteries; 4) Crew exploration/rescue vehicles require high specific energy batteries (>500 Wh/kg); 5) Earth/planetary orbiters require long life (> 20 years) and high specific energy rechargeable batteries (>300 Wh/kg)

This project can provide an opportunity for the widespread adoption of high energy, safe Lithium-Sulfur (Li-S) batteries in the consumer, automotive vehicles and grid energy storage market. Li-Sulfur batteries have a theoretical storage capacity of 2.3 kW/kg and offer one of the highest theoretical energy densities among rechargeable batteries and can yield a dramatic 3-4x reduction in weight, size, and cost to present day Li-ion batteries. Mobile consumer devices require faster performance and smaller sizes for greater portability. The principal limitations for these mobile devices, battery size and weight, are functions of energy density, and the basic chemistry of lithium-ion batteries for these devices has not changed in a decade. NOHMs lithium-sulfur batteries represent a 3x improvement over the state-of-the-art and 33% improvement over next-generation lithium-ion batteries, an attractive value proposition for the company's partners and prospective customers. If the potential of these batteries can be harnessed, they are expected to disrupt current lithium ion cell technology because of their higher energy density and the low cost and wide-spread availability of sulfur. This could change the mobile device market, the electric vehicle market, and energy storage market, enabling greater efficiency and power in all those sectors.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.