Battery cathode with vertically aligned microstructure fabricated by directional ice templating
Author(s)
Li, Guanting
Su, Jin
Huang, Chun
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Conventional slurry coating (SC) makes battery electrodes with random microstructure containing tortuous pores that restrict lithium ion diffusion and reduce battery capacities at faster discharge rates. Herein, a novel directional ice templating (DIT) is developed to make LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 (NMC811) cathodes that double the electrode mass loading and contain vertically aligned lamellae of electrode materials and pore channels to provide fast dual electron and ion transport. DIT uses in situ evolved ice structures to form the anisotropic microstructure. The effects on the chemical composition, bonding, and morphology of the NMC811 particles are studied using a range of surface-sensitive techniques including time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to guide the development of potentially more sustainable aqueous processing and eliminate the toxic, combustible organic solvent N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone in conventional electrode processing. The DIT cathode breaks the trade-off between high energy densities and fast discharging, exhibiting higher areal capacities (12 mAh cm−2) than the SC electrode (7.0 mAh cm−2) at a discharge current density of 1.4 mA cm−2, and maintains higher capacities at 9.8 mAh cm−2 and 186 mAh g−1 than 2.1 mAh cm−2 and 64 mAh g−1 for SC when the current is increased to 5.7 mA cm−2.
Date Issued
2025-08-01
Date Acceptance
2025-05-07
Citation
Small Science, 2025, 5 (8)
ISSN
2688-4046
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Small Science
Volume
5
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Author(s). Small Science published by Wiley-VCH GmbH This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
10.1002/smsc.202500198
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
2500198
Date Publish Online
2025-05-22