Laser materials processing in manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries

A significant increase in lithium-ion battery performances such as battery lifetime, high-rate capability and fast charging can be achieved by ultrafast laser structuring of composite electrodes. Therefore, laser materials processing and its upscaling in battery manufacturing is currently attracting huge attention as there is an increasing demand to further improve the electrochemical performance of next-generation batteries for use in electric vehicles. However, in addition to laser process upscaling issues, there is a strong need to be able to define suitable three-dimensional (3D) electrode designs regarding application scenarios, respective degradation processes, and safety aspects. Therefore, the development of next generation anodes and cathodes architectures needs to be flanked by analytics capable to generate a rapid evaluation of the entire composite electrodes. An appropriate post mortem analytical method should be able to visualize 3D lithium concentration and distribution providing a map of state-of-charge of entire electrodes. Such a technology recently introduced into battery analytics is laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) which is a type of atomic emission spectroscopy providing lateral resolved elemental compositions within a few milliseconds. ... mehrBy combining those chemical data with data from electrochemical analyses an evaluation of thick-film electrode architectures becomes possible. 2D and 3D lithium concentration profiles are presented for unstructured and laser-structured electrodes and corresponding electrode design criteria are derived from them.