Paper MS-MoM8
Controlling Nanomaterial Assembly to Improve Material Performance in Energy Storage Electrodes using Electrophoretic Deposition

Monday, November 7, 2016, 10:40 am, Room 103A

Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) provides a promising tool for large-scale manufacture of nanomaterial systems using conventional liquid processing techniques. One major roadblock to commercially viable applications of nanomaterials, such as in energy storage devices, is the ability to cost-effectively manufacture electrode-scale films while still maintaining precise control over the nanoscale and microscale morphology. We emphasize the ability of EPD to control nanoscale assembly for high throughput battery manufacturing through the design of a benchtop roll-to-roll platform. Using this approach, we fabricate electrodes for a range of battery technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, and lithium-oxygen batteries. This makes possible the development of binder-free, electrode assemblies with uniformity and control that enables improved performance across all of these battery platforms. Specifically, for lithium-sulfur batteries, we fabricate binder-free electrodes that achieve over 75% sulfur loading with a capacity greater than 1,200 mAh/g that retains more than 80% of the initial capacity after 100 cycles. For lithium-oxygen batteries, we demonstrate electrodes with improved overpotential of 50 mV during oxygen reduction and 130 mV during oxygen evolution in addition to a nearly 2X improvement in durability compared with conventional assembly methods. Overall, as battery manufacturing remains a critical barrier separating state-of-the-art research efforts from practical commercial energy storage innovations, we emphasize EPD as a versatile process able to provide the scalability, high throughput, and nanoscale control that are necessary to advance battery systems manufacturing.