UC Berkeley

The rheological properties of electrode slurries used in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries affect the manufacturing processes as well as the battery quality, such as electrochemical and durability performance. There is thus an urgent need to develop a physics-based model to describe the rheological properties of these electrode slurries to enable further optimization of battery electrode production. In this paper, we present a microrheological model for estimating the viscosity of electrode slurries that incorporates colloidal forces such as van der Waals and polymeric steric repulsion forces. The model shows good agreement with the experimentally determined viscosities of a graphite-based anode slurry and should be extendable to describe the rheological properties of cathode slurries.