3D-printing of easily recyclable all-ceramic thick LiCoO2 electrodes with enhanced areal capacity for Li-ion batteries using a highly filled thermoplastic filament

In this work, the production of thick ceramic LiCoO2 (LCO) electrodes using a conventional desktop 3Dprinting was developed as an alternative to conventional electrode manufacturing for Li-ion batteries. Firstly, the filament formulation, based on LCO powders and a sacrificial polymers blend, is optimized to achieve suitable features (viscosity, flexibility and mechanical consistency) to be used in the 3-D printing. Printing parameters were optimized to produce defect-free bodies with coin geometry (12 mm diameter and 230-850 lm thickness). Thermal debinding and sintering were studied in order to obtain all ceramic LCO electrodes with adequate porosity. The additive-free sintered electrodes (850 lm thickness) have enhanced areal and volumetric capacities (up to 28 mA & BULL;h & BULL;cm ⠃2 and 354 mA & BULL;h & BULL;cm ⠃3) due to their extremely high mass loading (up to 285 mg & BULL;cm ⠃2). Thus, the Li//LCO half-cell delivered an energy density of 1310 W & BULL;h & BULL;L-1. The ceramic nature of the electrode permits the use of a thin film of paint gold as current collector, reducing considerably the polarization of thick electrodes. Thus, the whole manufacturing process developed in this work is a complete solvent-free method to produce tuneable shape electrodes with enhanced energy density, opening the door for the manufacturing of high-density batteries with complex geometries and good recyclable.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc.

Automated summary

This work developed a method for producing thick ceramic LiCoO2 (LCO) electrodes using a conventional desktop 3D printing as an alternative to conventional electrode manufacturing for Li-ion batteries. The filament formulation was optimized to achieve suitable features for the 3-D printing, and printing parameters were optimized to produce defect-free bodies with a specific coin geometry. Thermal debinding and sintering processes were studied to obtain all ceramic LCO electrodes with adequate porosity.