3D-printing of easily recyclable all-ceramic thick LiCoO 2 electrodes with enhanced areal capacity for Li-ion batteries using a highly filled thermoplastic filament

• Published in: Journal of colloid and interface science Vol. 642; p. 351
• Main Authors: de la Torre-Gamarra, C, García-Suelto, M D, Del Rio Santos, D, Levenfeld, B, Varez, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 15.07.2023
• Subjects: Additive-free electrodes; Recyclable electrodes; Thick LiCoO electrodes; Fused filament fabrication; Additive manufacturing
• ISSN: 1095-7103

In this work, the production of thick ceramic LiCoO (LCO) electrodes using a conventional desktop 3D-printing was developed as an alternative to conventional electrode manufacturing for Li-ion batteries. Firstly, the filament formulation, based on LCO powders and a sacrificial polymers blend, is optimized to achieve suitable features (viscosity, flexibility and mechanical consistency) to be used in the 3-D printing. Printing parameters were optimized to produce defect-free bodies with coin geometry (12 mm diameter and 230-850 µm thickness). Thermal debinding and sintering were studied in order to obtain all ceramic LCO electrodes with adequate porosity. The additive-free sintered electrodes (850 µm thickness) have enhanced areal and volumetric capacities (up to 28 mA·h·cm and 354 mA·h·cm ) due to their extremely high mass loading (up to 285 mg·cm ). Thus, the Li//LCO half-cell delivered an energy density of 1310 W·h·L . The ceramic nature of the electrode permits the use of a thin film of paint gold as current collector, reducing considerably the polarization of thick electrodes. Thus, the whole manufacturing process developed in this work is a complete solvent-free method to produce tuneable shape electrodes with enhanced energy density, opening the door for the manufacturing of high-density batteries with complex geometries and good recyclable.