Energy Technologies

Most previous studies about halide solid-state electrolytes have used pellets prepared by uniaxial pressing, which is a good approach for materials development but is not suitable for commercialization. Thinner electrolyte layers that can be scaled up to large cell areas are required, and tape casting is a promising approach. It is challenging, however, as halide materials are reactive with most of the conventional solvents used in the process. In this study, solvents with low polarity, such as toluene, are found to be compatible with the Li3YBr6 halide material. A wide variety of candidate binders that are soluble in toluene are studied. MSB1–13 binder is preferred, based on the ionic conductivity and mechanical properties of the tape. Electrolyte tapes (<70 μm) are successfully cast on Al substrates, using 2 wt% binder. The resulting room temperature ionic conductivity is 2 × 10−4 S cm−1. Two composite cathodes including active material (LiFePO4 or LiNi0.82Mn0.07Co0.11O2) and 1 to 1.5 wt% MSB1–13 are tape cast as proof-of-concept for a scalable cell fabrication approach. A LiFePO4 cell shows good retention at 25 °C. The performance of NMC cells with tape electrolyte or pellet electrolyte is similar. This study demonstrates the feasibility of tape casting halide-based electrolytes and cathodes.