Status: Available for Licensing and/or Research Collaboration

Background

The global transition to renewable energy, electrified transportation, and AI-driven digital infrastructure is driving unprecedented demand for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) that can charge and discharge rapidly, without sacrificing energy density, cost, cycle life, or safety. The U.S. Department of Energy has set ambitious targets for next-generation LIBs, including 5–15 minute charging to 80% state of charge, costs below $100 per kWh, and a 300-mile driving range per charge. At the same time, emerging grid and data center applications increasingly require energy storage systems capable of delivering both high energy density and ultrafast power response to manage transient loads and variable renewable energy generation. Graphite — the dominant commercial anode material since the 1990s — fundamentally cannot meet these combined fast-charge and high-power performance demands.

Pseudocapacitive materials are widely recognized as the most promising candidates for extreme fast charging (XFC) LIBs because they can enable rapid charging and high-power discharge performance at near full capacity. However, the state-of-the-art pseudocapacitive materials are metal oxides that suffer from high cost, high lithiation potential (which lowers cell voltage and energy density), or reliance on low-abundance and heavy elements.

Technology Overview

Researchers at Montana State University (MSU) have developed a fundamentally new class of carbon-based LIB anode materials using crystalline polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecular solids that deliver true “pseudocapacitive” lithium-ion storage, enabling simultaneous high energy density, rapid charging, and high-power discharge performance. The lead material, hexa-peri-hexabenzocoronene (HBC), features a unique crystal structure that enables rapid “edge site” lithiation in addition to interlayer lithiation. True pseudocapacitance has not previously been achieved by any LIB anode, combining the benefits of highly abundant carbon and a similar capacity and working potential to graphite. The herringbone crystal structure of HBC allows for rapid, reversible lithiation at XFC rates that graphite cannot support, enabling charging rates as low as 6 min without sacrificing >20% of theoretical capacity or long-term cycling stability.

Benefits

  • Extreme fast charging: Extreme fast charging: 10 minutes to 80% charge, 6 minutes to 76% charge; >97% capacity retention over 600 cycles
  • High energy density: 823 Wh kg⁻¹ (electrode-level) / 273 Wh kg⁻¹ (cell-level) — outperforming graphite
  • High power density: 16 kW kg⁻¹ (electrode-level) / 5.3 kW kg⁻¹ (cell-level) — not previously observed for any carbon-based anode
  • Composed entirely of abundant elements: (carbon and hydrogen) — low-cost and scalable
  • Tunable performance: through controlled heat treatment (recrystallization and gentle polymerization)
  • Broad platform technology covering a wide class of PAH precursors and PAH mixtures, enabling continued performance optimization

Opportunity

  •  The technology is available for licensing and commercialization. Collaborative research opportunities with MSU investigators include expanding the platform to additional PAH precursors and optimizing cell-level performance and formats.
  • A comprehensive characterization of this technology is currently under review for publication in a high-impact, peer-reviewed journal.
  • The technology is highly relevant to electric vehicles, energy storage, consumer electronics, and defense applications requiring rapid charging and high energy density.
  • The technology is also highly relevant to grid storage applications that demand high-power discharge (e.g., data centers) – a combined battery/supercapacitor system is combined into a single device with PAH-based lithium-ion anodes.

IP Status

A provisional patent covering this technology has been filed and assigned application number 64/037,824.

Contact

Casey Wegner

(406) 994-7764

casey.wegner@montana.edu