Structured electrode additive manufacturing for lithium-ion batteries

TL;DR

This paper introduces SEAM, a scalable manufacturing method for ultra-thick lithium-ion battery electrodes with aligned structures, enhancing ion transport and capacity compared to traditional slurry-casted electrodes.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, scalable additive manufacturing technique, SEAM, for producing ultra-thick, aligned electrodes with improved electrochemical performance.

Findings

Higher areal capacity than slurry-casted electrodes

Enhanced ion transport and electrolyte infusion

Scalable and flexible manufacturing process

Abstract

A thick electrode with high areal capacity has been developed as a strategy for high-energy-density lithium-ion batteries, but thick electrodes have difficulties in manufacturing and limitations in ion transport. Here, we reported a new manufacturing approach for ultra-thick electrode with aligned structure, called structure electrode additive manufacturing or SEAM, which aligns active materials to the through-thicknesses direction of electrodes using shear flow and a designed printing path. The ultra-thick electrodes with high loading of active materials, low tortuous structure, and good structure stability resulting from a simple and scalable SEAM lead to rapid ion transport and fast electrolyte infusion, delivering a higher areal capacity than slurry-casted thick electrodes. SEAM shows strengths in design flexibility and scalability, which allows the production of practical high energy/power density structure electrodes.