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Albert L. Lipson

Principal Materials Scientist

Biography

Dr. Albert Lipson leads projects to advance the state of the art of Li-ion battery recycling and Li-ion battery cathode development at Argonne and is working toward processing and manufacturing of solid state batteries.

He is currently a staff member at the Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF), which focuses on process R&D and scale up of materials for advanced applications.

His Li-ion battery recycling projects are part of the ReCell center, including a project to thermally remove binder and carbon black from NMC cathode materials without effecting the performance where he has demonstrated that adding LiOH can prevent the degradation of the cathode materials due to the release of fluorine from the binder.

In addition, Lipson works on the removal and recovery of electrolyte, which is important to eliminate contamination and increase revenues from recycling, where he has shown that recycled electrolyte can have performance on par with virgin electrolytes. He is also working to produce graphene in a scalable way from spent anode material that can enhance the revenue of the recycling process through the high-value graphene product.

Beyond recycling, he is leading the Argonne portion of a DOE AMO project with Sylvatex, Inc. to simplify the process and reduce the energy consumption of producing Li-ion battery cathode materials. Previously, he led the Argonne effort on a multimillion-dollar collaborative project with A123 Systems, LLC. During the course of this project, he and his team developed several methods to improve the thermal stability of Ni-rich NMC cathode materials using techniques that are easily scalable.

Lipson has over 11 years of experience working on Li-ion, Mg-ion and Ca-ion batteries during his PhD thesis work and at Argonne. This includes extensive efforts to develop characterization tools to study batteries in new ways and gain fundamental insight into battery performance, as well as the use of synchrotron X-ray techniques, scanning probe microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.

Lipson has seven years of experience developing various synthesis techniques for battery cathode materials from the bench scale to kilogram quantities. This includes extensive experience optimizing the synthesis of Ni-rich NMC cathodes using continuous stirred tank reactor coprecipitation, which is similar to industry state-of-the-art methods.

Education

  • PhD in Materials Science and Engineering – Northwestern University (2013)
  • B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering – University of California, Los Angeles (2007)

Honors and Awards

  • Terminal Year Fellow at Northwestern University (2011)
  • Ryan fellowship for the exploration of nanoscience (2009)
  • Honorable mention in NSF graduate research fellowship program (2009)
  • Outstanding Bachelor of Science in materials science and engineering at UCLA (2007)
  • William Knapp Scholarship for excellence in ceramic materials and research (2006)

Select Publications

  • A. L. Lipson, B. Ross, J. Durham, D. Liu, M. Leresche, T. T. Fister, L. Liu, K. Kim, Stabilizing NMC 811 Li-ion Battery Cathode through a Rapid Coprecipitation Process,” ACS Applied Energy Materials (2021).
  • B. J. Ross, M. LeResche, D. Liu, J. L. Durham, E. U. Dahl, and A. L. Lipson, Mitigating the Impact of Thermal Binder Removal for Direct Li-ion Battery Recycling,” ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 8, 33, 12511-12515 (2020).
  • Y. Shi, K. Kim, Y. Xing, A Millonig, B. Kim, L. Wang, E. Lee, C. Harrison, T. Yu, D. C. Johnson, A. L. Lipson, J. L. Durham, D. Liu, T. T. Fister, L. Yu, and J. Wen Simple and Scalable Dry Surface Doping Technique to Enhance the Electrochemical Performance of LiNi0.64Mn0.2Co0.16O2 Cathode Materials,” Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 8, 38, 19866-19872 (2020).
  • A. L. Lipson, J. L. Durham, M. LeResche, I. Abu-Baker, M. J. Murphy, T. T. Fister, L. Wang, F.  Zhou, L. Liu, K. Kim, D. Johnson, Improving the Thermal Stability of NMC 622 Li-Ion Battery Cathodes through Doping During Coprecipitation,” ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 12 (16), 18512-18518 (2020).
  • A. L. Lipson, S. Kim, B. Pan, C. Liao, T. T.Fister, B. J. Ingram, Calcium Intercalation into Layered Fluorinated Sodium Iron Phosphate,” Journal of Power Sources, 369, 133 (2017).
  • A. L. Lipson, B. Pan, C. Liao, J. T. Vaughey, B. J. Ingram, Practical Stability Limits of Magnesium Electrolytes,” Journal of the Electrochemistry Society, 163, A2253 (2016).
  • P. Senguttuvan, S. Han, S. Kim, A. L. Lipson, S. Tepavcevic, T. T. Fister, A. K. Burrell, C. S. Johnson, High Power Rechargeable Non-aqueous Multivalent Zn/V2O5 Battery,” Advanced Energy Materials, 6, 1600826  (2016).
  • A. L. Lipson, S. Han, B. Pan, N. Sa, C. Liao, A. K. Burrell, J. T. Vaughey and B. J. Ingram, Nickel Hexacyanoferrate, a Versatile Intercalation Host for Divalent Ions from Nonaqueous Electrolytes” Journal of Power Sources, 325, 646 (2016).
  • N. Sa, H. Wang, D. L. Proffit, A. L. Lipson, B. Key, M. Liu, Z. Feng, T. T. Fister, Y. Ren, C. Sun, J. T. Vaughey, P. A. Fenter, K. A. Persson, A. K. Burrell, Is Alpha-V2O5 a Cathode Material for Mg Insertion Batteries?” Journal of Power Sources, 323, 44 (2016).
  • A. L. Lipson, B. Pan, S. Lapidus, C. Liao, J. T. Vaughey and B. J. Ingram, Rechargeable Ca-ion Batteries: A New Energy Storage System” Chemistry of Materials, 27, 8442 (2015).
  • Z. Feng, X. Chen, L. Qiao, A. L. Lipson, T. T. Fister, L. Zeng, C. Kim, T. Yi, N. Sa, D. L. Proffit, A. K. Burrell, J. Cabana, B. J. Ingram, M. D. Biegalski, M. J. Bedzyk, P. A. Fenter, Phase-Controlled Electrochemical Activity of Epitaxial Mg-Spinel Thin Films” ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 7, 28438 (2015).  
  • A. L. Lipson, D. L. Proffit, B. Pan, T. T. Fister, C. Liao, A. K. Burrell, J. T. Vaughey and B. J. Ingram, Current Collector Corrosion in Ca-ion Batteries” Journal of the Electrochemical Society,162, A1574 (2015).

Patents

  • A. K. Burrell, N. Sa, D. L. Proffit, A. L. Lipson, C. Liao, J. T. Vaughey, B. J. Ingram, Electrolyte for Magnesium Battery” United States Patent 9,698,448 (2017).
  • M. C Hersam, A. L Lipson, S. Bandyopadhyay, H. J. Karmel, and M. J. Bedzyk, Method of Enhanced Lithiation of Doped Silicon Carbide via High Temperature Annealing in an Inert Atmosphere” United States Patent 8,734,674 B1 (2014).
  • J. Lipson, A. L. Lipson and R. P. McNamara, Enhancing Selectivity and/or Sensitivity of Spectroscopic Measurements in Media”, United States Patent 7,742,166 (2007).