Battery Materials Characterization Workflow for Effective Battery Electrode Manufacturing Processes

Abstract

A lithium-ion battery’s performance characteristics demand the highest performing materials in the anode, cathode, electrolyte, and separator. Materials characterization is an essential set of analytical techniques for ensuring optimal battery performance during the stages of material selection, development, and manufacturing. Key material characterization technologies for ensuring that batteries achieve their performance characteristics include thermal analysis, rheology, mechanical analysis and isothermal microcalorimetry. Thermal analysis provides insights into material thermal stability and structure change under different temperature ranges. Rheology provides insights into battery slurry storage, mixing, coating, and drying for more uniform and defect free electrode manufacturing. Mechanical testing provides insights into structure-property relationship such as verifying whether the polymer material in a separator will shut down safely without melting. Isothermal microcalorimetry allows researchers to study the electrochemistry of a working battery cell by enabling direct heat flow measurements that provide insights into battery lifetime. This presentation will focus on the electrode manufacturing with thermal analysis and rheology characterization to highlight how advanced material characterization can help battery researchers, developers, and production specialists develop better analytical material characterization and quality control procedures.