Spray fabrication of additive-free electrodes for advanced Lithium-Ion storage technologies

Polymer binders and carbon conductivity enhancers are inevitably required to make improvements in structural durability and electrochemical performance of lithium-ion battery (LIB) electrodes, although these additive constituents incur weight and volume penalties on the overall battery capacity. Here, additive-free electrode architectures were successfully fabricated over 20 x 20 cm2 electrode areas using a layer-by-layer spray coating approach, with the ultimate goal to boost gravimetric/volumetric electrode capacity and to reduce the total cost of LIB cells. Initially, the binder fraction of spray-coated Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) electrodes was reduced progressively, from 40 to 0 wt%. The electrochemical behavior of electrodes was then re-optimized as a proportion of conductivity enhancers within the binder-free electrode decreased to zero. Further, the otherwise identical spray coating process was applied to manufacture LiFePO4 (LFP) positive electrodes, leading to all-additive-free full cell LIB configurations with attractive energy density of-310 Wh/kg and power performance of-1500 W/kg.

Automated summary

Additive-free electrode architectures were fabricated using a layer-by-layer spray coating approach to enhance the capacity and reduce the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. By reducing the binder fraction and conductivity enhancers, all-additive-free full cell LIB configurations with high energy density and power performance were achieved.