High-Performance, Low-Cost, and Dense-Structure Electrodes with High Mass Loading for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries have undergone a remarkable development in the past 30 years. However, conventional electrodes are insufficient for the ever-increasing demand of high-energy batteries. Here, reported is a thick electrode with a dense structure, as an alternative to the commonly recognized porous framework. A low-temperature sintering technology with the aid of aqueous solvent, high pressure, and an ion-conductive additive is originally developed for preparing the LiCoO2 (LCO)/Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) dense-structure electrode as the representative cathode/anode material. The 400 mu m thick cathode with 110 mg cm(-2) mass loading achieves a high specific capacity of 131.2 mAh g(-1) with a good capacity retention of 96% over 150 cycles, far exceeding the commercial counterpart (approximate to 40 mu m) of 54.1 mAh g(-1) with 39%. The ultrathick electrode of 1300 mu m thickness presents a remarkable area capacity of 28.6 mAh cm(-2) that is 16 times that of the commercial electrode. The full cell based on the dense electrodes delivers an extremely high areal capacity of 14.4 mAh cm(-2). The ion-diffusion coefficients of the densely sintered electrodes increase by nearly three orders of magnitude. This design opens up a new avenue for scalable and sustainable material manufacturing towards various practical applications.