Interactions between organic additives and active powders in water-based lithium iron phosphate electrode slurries

The interactions of organic additives with active powders are investigated and are found to have great influence on the determination of the mixing process for preparing electrode slurries with good dispersion and electrochemical properties of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) electrodes. Based on the analyses of zeta potential, sedimentation, and rheology, it is shown that LiFePO4 prefers to interact with styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) relative to other organic additives such as sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (SCMC), and thus shows preferential adsorption by SBR, whereas SBR has much lower efficiency than SCMC in dispersing LiFePO4. Therefore, for SCMC to interact with and disperse LiFePO4 before the interaction of LiFePO4 with SBR, it is suggested to mix SCMC with LiFePO4 prior to the addition of SBR during the slurry preparation process. For the electrode prepared via the suggested process, i.e., the sequenced adding process in which SCMC is mixed with active powders prior to the addition of SBR, a much better electrochemical performance is obtained than that of the one prepared via the process referred as the simultaneous adding process, in which mixing of SCMC and SBR with active powders in simultaneous. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.