(Invited) Impact of Binder Selection in Advanced Lithium Battery Electrode Fabrication and Performance

Polymer based binder plays an important role in electrode structures for varies energy storage systems such as battery and capacitor. In conventional wet coating process for battery electrode fabrication process, the polymer binders are mixed with the active material and conductive additives to form the slurry for the coating. The binders provide both physical and chemical supporting to the overall electrode structure, in addition to the basic “gluing” function. In recent years, a lot of aqueous soluble polymers were introduced in lithium-ion battery study working as alternative of traditional PVDF binder. The application of aqueous based polymer binder covers graphite, silicon, metal oxide, and even sulfur electrode fabrication. In this talk we will present some of our recent study on selected polymer binders in certain chemistry, such as Li-S system. We will reveal the difference in both physical and chemical properties of the selected binders, as well as the impact on the overall electrochemical performance. We will also discuss the binder selection and challenges from manufacturing point of view.