Processing conditions of battery slurries into electrodes are known to affect final battery performance. However, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of how to control processing conditions to achieve better batteries. Previous work has focused on the formulation step of the battery manufacturing process. This study concentrates on two of the slurry processing steps, namely coating and drying, and their effect on film quality and coin cell performance. Rheological measurements were used to determine the starting slurry microstructure as well as determining the effect of flow on microstructure evolution. Well-characterized slurries were subjected to a series of shear rates and drying temperatures to examine the effect of flow and drying rate on final cell performance. The data suggests that there is a complex relationship between surface roughness and shear rate/temperature, but ultimately, performance based on shear rate is dependent on drying time. Wet slurries are well mixed to form homogeneous suspensions. The slurries are spread via an automatic bird applicator coater to the desired thickness. The film is quickly exposed to different baking temperatures to remove solvent. We observe that higher temperatures produce better performing batteries on average. By using scanning electron microscopy images and energy dispersive spectroscopy maps, further conclusions about the species dispersion including their short and long range contacts were made. A radial distribution function written in Matlab software was able to use the species spectroscopy maps to coordinate the carbon to active material particles throughout the length and depth of an electrode. From analysis of coordination number plotted as a function of distance throughout an electrode, it can be seen that better performing batteries have both short and long range contacts. Batteries only having short range contacts or long rang contacts perform mediocre and poor, respectively. The optimal combination of shear rate and drying time allow for this coordination to form. While more data is needed to make concrete conclusions, the preliminary data presented here shows for the first-time quantitative relationships between processing conditions and battery performance.

Effect of shear rate and drying speed in lithium-ion battery slurry processing

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.