Carbon-Binder Migration: A Three-Dimensional Evaporation Model for Lithium Ion Batteries

Li-ion battery electrodes manufacturing is raising broad interest from both experimental and computational perspectives, due to its impact on the cost, mechanical and electrochemical properties of the final electrodes and cells. Among the different manufacturing steps, solvent evaporation can trigger heterogeneities along the electrode mesostructure through additives migration, which were found to affect significantly the final electrodes’ properties. In this work, we present the first physics-based three-dimensional model able to mimic the additives migration occurring along the drying step, unlocking the generation of three-dimensional heterogeneous electrode mesostructures. We analyzed the effect of drying rate on the final electrode mesostructures, the dynamics of additives migration and how the developed heterogeneities affect the following manufacturing step, i.e. electrodes’ compression. The results are in agreements with previous experimental findings and indicates trends not disclosed yet. Lastly, the implementation of complex drying procedures (three-stage drying) was tested and compared to its experimental counterpart.