Thick Binder-Free Electrodes for Li-Ion Battery Fabricated Using Templating Approach and Spark Plasma Sintering Reveals High Areal Capacity

International audienceThe templating approach is a powerful method for preparing porous electrodes with interconnected well-controlled pore sizes and morphologies. The optimization of the pore architecture design facilitates electrolyte penetration and provides a rapid diffusion path for lithium ions, which becomes even more crucial for thick porous electrodes. Here, NaCl microsize particles are used as a templating agent for the fabrication of 1 mm thick porous LiFePO4 and Li4Ti5O12 composite electrodes using spark plasma sintering technique. These sintered binder-free electrodes are self-supported and present a large porosity (40%) with relatively uniform pores. The electrochemical performances of half and full batteries reveal a remarkable specific areal capacity (20 mA h cm(-2)), which is 4 times higher than those of 100 mu m thick electrodes present in conventional tape-casted Li-ion batteries (5 mA h cm(-2)). The 3D morphological study is carried out using full field transmission X-ray microscopy in microcomputed tomography mode to obtain tortuosity values and pore size distributions leading to a strong correlation with their electrochemical properties. These results also demonstrate that the coupling between the salt templating method and the spark plasma sintering technique turns out to be a promising way to fabricate thick electrodes with high energy density