Processing, Fast Formation, and Performance of Aqueous-Processed Low-Co Cathodes for High-Energy Lithium-Ion Pouch Cells

Abstract

Ni-rich, or low-Co, layered active materials are promising candidates for next-generation cathodes for lithium-ion batteries. However, these materials present processing and performance challenges such as compatibility with water during aqueous electrode formulation, unoptimized SEI/CEI formation conditions during cell assembly, and unstable capacity fade when cycled to upper cutoff voltages above 4.3 V vs. Li/Li+. The DOE Battery Manufacturing R&D Facility at ORNL (BMF) has recently moved towards low-Co-containing and high-energy LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 (NMC 811) as a new internal cathode baseline and away from LiNi0.5Mn0.3Co0.2O2 NMC 532 for conducting cathode water stability and formation protocol studies. These XRD, Raman spectroscopy, XPS, and TEM studies verified that there was no change in bulk structure of the NMC 811 with long-term water exposure, and only small changes in the surface chemistry. Capacity retention under 0.33C/-0.33C USABC long-term cycling for NMC 811 aqueous-processed single-layer pouch cells was obtained and compared to: 1) the NMP/PVDF processed standard; and 2) NMC 811 exposed to water for 4 hours before processing with the standard NMP/PVDF formulation. The water exposed NMC 811 processed in NMP showed a similar capacity fade to the aqueous processed case. However, all three cases showed excellent capacity retention through 600 cycles, and the aqueous processed cells and NMP processed cells exhibited ~75% and ~80% capacity retention through 1000 cycles, respectively. It was also observed that the differences in capacity fade for all three cases occur within the first ~100 cycles, and the capacity fade slopes were similar from that point on. It is thought that this slight difference in early capacity retention is due to surface chemistry changes of the NMC 811 during aqueous processing and could be remedied with shorter mixing times or a surface protective coating. To decrease the high manufacturing cost associated with long formation times for low-Co cathodes, five different formation protocols were studied using graphite anodes where the total formation time varied from 10 to 86 h. Electrochemical characterization and post mortem analysis showed that longer formation times do not necessarily improve long-term performance while extremely short formation protocols result in lithium plating and poorer electrochemical performance. It was found that the optimum formation protocol is intermediate in length to minimize impedance growth, improve capacity retention, and avoid lithium plating. This presentation will focus on recent ORNL advancements in these areas, where aqueous processing conditions (mixing times, water exposure, binder type, etc.) and fast formation protocols are being developed for NMC 811 and that will be extended to other low-Co and Co-free cathodes.