One natural strategy is to increase the energy density by increasing the electrode thickness, which reduces the fraction of some inactive components such as current collectors and separators. However, thick electrodes suffer from electrolyte depletion under high discharge rates and low power density. As a result, electrodes are divided into two categories—thin electrodes (ca. 50 µm) for high power application and thick electrode (> 100 µm) for high energy application [2]. This work reports a design in thick electrodes with 3D micro-structures enabled by laser processing, which minimizes the electrode tortuosity and improves the lithium ion diffusion kinetics. This novel design enables high energy and high power densities for LIBs.

References:

[1] Z. Du, D.L. Wood, C. Daniel, S. Kalnaus, J. Li, Journal of Applied Electrochemistry 47 (3), (2017) 405-415

[2] P. Smyrek, J. Proll, H. J. Seifert, and W. Pfleging, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 163 (2), (2016) A19-26.

Acknowledgements

This research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, 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 work at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 644971. Finally, the support for laser materials processing by the Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF, http://www.knmf.kit.edu/) a Helmholtz research infrastructure at KIT is gratefully acknowledged.