Sustainable Solvent-Free Production and Resulting Performance of Polymer Electrolyte-Based All-Solid-State Battery Electrodes

For the development of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs), it is of major importance to identify scalable process routes, to define limits of the processing technologies, and to investigate how the electrochemical performance can be influenced by the manufacturing process. Herein, two scalable and sustainable production chains are presented, extrusion- and direct calendaring of composite cathode granules, which are suitable for industrial series production. Both process routes start with a melt granulation step to desagglomerate the carbon black to homogenize the cathode components. By adjusting the granulation process parameters the process time and, thus, the production costs can be reduced. The polymer solid electrolyte distribution induced by the process shows a considerable influence on the rate capability of the ASSB cells. The manufactured pouch cells reach approximate to 140 mAh g(-1) at 0.1C and 75/50 mAh g(-1) at 1C discharge rate and 80 degrees C for extruded-calendered and directly calendered electrodes, respectively, which is comparable to other recent publications on laboratory scale.

Automated summary

Research suggests that by adjusting granulation process parameters, production time and costs can be reduced, while the solid polymer electrolyte distribution induced by the process has a significant influence on the rate capability of all-solid-state batteries.