Abstract
Lithium-ion battery (LIB) production can benefit both economically and environmentally from aqueous processing. Although these electrodes have the potential to surpass electrodes conventionally processed with N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) in terms of performance, significant issues still exist with respect to ultra-thick cathodes (≫4 mAh/cm2 areal capacities). A major concern for these types of electrodes with high-nickel active material stems from lithium leaching from active material, which drives the pH of the dispersion in excess of 12 and subsequently corrodes the current collector interface. As this corrosion reaction proceeds, hydrogen generation at the interface creates bubbles which cause severe cracking in the dried electrode surface. When areal loadings are increased, this effect becomes more pronounced and is detrimental to both mechanical and electrochemical properties of these electrodes. Herein, a technique for mitigating corrosion at the current collector by adjusting the pH of the dispersion with the addition of phosphoric acid is investigated. Phosphoric acid was added in 0.5 wt% increments between 0.0 and 1.5 wt%, and effects on rheology, adhesion, corrosion, and electrochemical performance were investigated. A technique is reported for producing aqueous processed cathodes with areal loadings of 6–8 mAh/cm2 with reduced surface cracking and superior high-rate discharge capacity (i.e. high-power performance) for this class of cathode loadings.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 635-643 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Colloid and Interface Science |
| Volume | 581 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2021 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored in part by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE) was sponsored by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) (Deputy Director: David Howell) Applied Battery Research subprogram (Program Manager: Peter Faguy). This research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ). This research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory , managed by UT Battelle , LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 , was sponsored by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) (Director: David Howell) Applied Battery Research subprogram (Program Manager: Peter Faguy). This research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, was sponsored by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) (Director: David Howell) Applied Battery Research subprogram (Program Manager: Peter Faguy).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| Battelle | |
| Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Vehicle Technologies Office | |
| UT-Battelle |
Keywords
- Aqueous cathode dispersions
- Current collector corrosion
- Electrode dispersion rheology
- High-areal-capacity cathodes
- High-power performance
- Lithium leaching
- Phosphoric acid addition
- Thick lithium-ion battery coatings
- pH stabilization
