A lightweight and metal-free current collector for battery anode applications

Jaswinder Sharma, Runming Tao, Georgios Polizos, Nihal Kanbargi, Benjamin LaRiviere, Jianlin Li

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The requirement for high energy density batteries is driving the development of high-capacity electrode materials while reducing the amount of inactive battery components such as separators, binders, and current collectors. Though current collectors are an inactive component, they are still required for successful working of a battery cell. Conventional current collectors include aluminum foil for cathode and copper foil for anode. Copper foil is quite heavy (8.7 mg/cm2) for 10 μm thickness. Therefore, there is a need for a lightweight current collector for anode applications. In this work, a metal-free current collector comprised of aligned carbon fiber (CFs) layer filled with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) mixed in polymer (P) is developed to be used as a current collector for anodes. Anodes coated on the CF-CNT-P showed lower charge transfer resistance and improved rate capability compared with the anodes fabricated on conventional copper foil-based current collectors. The CF-CNT-P are lighter (≈1.5 mg/cm2) than the commonly used copper foil (8.7 mg/cm2), which will increase the gravimetric energy density.

Original languageEnglish
Article number110161
JournalJournal of Energy Storage
Volume79
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 15 2024

Funding

This research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy (DOE) under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, was sponsored by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (Grant # 2.1.0.245) to J.S. A portion of this research used resources at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facilities operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy (DOE) under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, was sponsored by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (Grant # 2.1.0.245 ) to J.S. A portion of this research used resources at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a DOE Office of Science User Facilities operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

FundersFunder number
DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office2.1.0.245
U.S. Department of EnergyDE-AC05-00OR22725
Office of Science
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
UT-Battelle

    Keywords

    • Anode
    • Carbon fiber
    • Current collector
    • Lightweight
    • lithium-ion batteries

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'A lightweight and metal-free current collector for battery anode applications'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this