Transforming Materials into Practical Automotive Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Abstract Although tremendous efforts have been devoted into research and development of materials science and engineering, chemistry, electrochemistry, and solid‐state physics in lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) over the last 30 years, the critical technologies and applied science underneath manufacturing and processing seem very seldom reported, which is further manifested by the realization of the gap between academy and industry within recent years. In this paper, the intrinsic relationship of materials‐processing‐performance is highlighted by thoroughly reviewing the bridge effect of processing, transport, and transfer at different scales across electrode, heterogeneous thermodynamics, and kinetics during charge‐discharge cycles, the tradeoff between areal capacity and rate performance, and some practical novel electrode designs. Based on very limited open literature, the fundamental basics and sciences of the state of art production steps including slurry mixing, coating, drying, calendering, electrolyte filling, and formatting are comprehensively discussed. Through correlating with the materials design and development, the electrode compositions and structures, and the bridge effect of processing, the in‐depth understanding of the importance of individual steps and their interactions are provided to shed light on further improvement on materials and manufacturing for LIBs.