From Fundamental Understanding to Engineering Design of High-Performance Thick Electrodes for Scalable Energy-Storage Systems.

Wu, Jingyi; Zhang, Xiao; Ju, Zhengyu; Wang, Lei; Hui, Zeyu; Mayilvahanan, Karthik; Takeuchi, Kenneth J; Marschilok, Amy C et al. · Adv Mater · 2021

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The ever-growing needs for renewable energy demand the pursuit of batteries with higher energy/power output. A thick electrode design is considered as a promising solution for high-energy batteries due to the minimized inactive material ratio at the device level. Most of the current research focuses on pushing the electrode thickness to a maximum limit; however, very few of them thoroughly analyze the effect of electrode thickness on cell-level energy densities as well as the balance between energy and power density. Here, a realistic assessment of the combined effect of electrode thickness with other key design parameters is provided, such as active material fraction and electrode porosity, which affect the cell-level energy/power densities of lithium-LiNi<sub>0.6</sub> Mn<sub>0.2</sub> Co<sub>0.2</sub> O<sub>2</sub> (Li-NMC622) and lithium-sulfur (Li-S) cells as two model battery systems, is provided. Based on the state-of-the-art lithium batteries, key research targets are quantified to achieve 500 Wh kg<sup>-1</sup> /800 Wh L<sup>-1</sup> cell-level energy densities and strategies are elaborated to simultaneously enhance energy/power output. Furthermore, the remaining challenges are highlighted toward realizing scalable high-energy/power energy-storage systems.