Lithium-ion battery anodes of highly dispersed carbon nanotubes, graphene nanoplatelets, and carbon nanofibers

Abstract

Lithium-ion battery (LIB) anodes made of highly dispersed nano structured carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene nanoplatelet (GNPs) flakes, and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were fabricated and tested. The mixed CNT/GNP/CNF form a conductive network while CNFs serve as scaffold to support CNTs and GNPs. The components of the anode were held together by using polyvinylidene fluoride as additive binder. A pouch type battery cell was assembled using a commercial separator and cathode that is hermetically sealed in laminated aluminum case and tested. The tests were performed with 8 channel battery analyzer under constant current–constant voltage charging mode and constant current discharging mode. All cells were tested at room temperature. The loading density of electrodes was 15–20 mg/cm2. All cell tests had 1 min open-circuit rest at the end of each charge and discharge, the cycle number was 100. The initial results on elaborated anodes indicate the high performance on a small scale experiments and further strengthen our hypothesis that carbon nanostructures material is extremely useful and can be modified during processing for LIB applications. As expected, the GNPs significantly enhance the performance of the battery. Anodes made of CNT/GNP/CNF material were found to exhibit higher reversible capacity as compared to CNT/CNF counterparts.