Electrophoretic coating of LiFePO4/Graphene oxide on carbon fibers as cathode electrodes for structural lithium ion batteries
Journal article, 2021

Carbon fibers (CF), commonly used in the structure of airplanes or cars, can also work as conductive electrodes in “structural batteries” for distributed energy storage. To this aim CF should be chemically functionalized, which is challenging due to their complex geometry and surface. Here, we describe an “all-electrostatic” approach taking advantage of the intrinsic conductivity of CF to coat them with a cathode material composed of LiFePO4 blended
with nanosheets of electrochemically exfoliated graphene oxide (EGO). We first achieve electrostatic selfassembly of the nanometric components at the nanoscale, then use Electrophoretic Deposition (EPD) to obtain a uniform, macroscale coating on the fibers. We achieve a LiFePO4 loading >90 wt% featuring good adhesion on the carbon fibers, low degradation upon battery cycling, low charge transfer resistance. The electrode composite outperforms similar state-of-the-art cathode materials when used in Half-Cell vs. Li. Full battery cells using coated CF as cathode and pristine CF as anode yield specific energy density of 222.14 Wh⋅kg􀀀 1 and power density of 0.29 kW⋅kg􀀀 1 with 88.1% capacity retention at 1 C over 300 cycles, compatible with industrial applications of this technique in composites production.

Li-ion batteries

Structural batteries

Electrophoretic deposition

Carbon fiber

Author

Jaime Sanchez Sanchez

2D-Tech

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Johanna Xu

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Material and Computational Mechanics

2D-Tech

Zhenyuan Xia

Institute for organic syntheses and photoreactivity (ISOF-CNR)

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Jinhua Sun

2D-Tech

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Leif Asp

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Material and Computational Mechanics

2D-Tech

Vincenzo Palermo

Institute for organic syntheses and photoreactivity (ISOF-CNR)

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

2D-Tech

Composites Science and Technology

0266-3538 (ISSN)

Vol. 208 108768

2D material-based technology for industrial applications (2D-TECH)

GKN Aerospace Sweden (2D-tech), 2021-01-01 -- 2024-12-31.

VINNOVA (2019-00068), 2020-05-01 -- 2024-12-31.

Structural pOweR CompositEs foR futurE civil aiRcraft (SORCERER)

European Commission (EC) (EC/H2020/738085), 2017-02-01 -- 2020-02-28.

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

Materials Science

Subject Categories

Other Chemical Engineering

Composite Science and Engineering

Infrastructure

Chalmers Materials Analysis Laboratory

DOI

10.1016/j.compscitech.2021.108768

More information

Latest update

3/2/2022 2