In January 2015 a joint project of ZBT, University Duisburg-Essen Chair Energy Technology and Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Hermsdorf started with the focus on the use of water based binder materials in electrodes for Li-Ion-Batteries, funded by the AiF on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Electrodes of Li-Ion-Batteries are made of electrochemically active materials, binders and conductivity additives. Currently the manufacturing of electrodes for commercially available Li-Ion-Batteries is based on Polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) as the polymeric binder and N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent. To substitute PVDF and the toxic solvent NMP by water soluble polymers offers the possibility to reduce significantly the environmental pollution through the battery production as well as the cost of Li-Ion-Batteries.

Objective of the project is to develop a coating process for the production of electrodes for Li-Ion-Batteries based on environmentally friendly, water soluble binder systems. At first, electrode structures prepared by using the new binder materials will be optimised in order to maximise the electrochemical performance of the active materials in combination with the water soluble binders. In a second step adapted compositions and the resulting structure-property-relationship will be transferred into a technical centre scale.

The project is addressed to producers of electrodes for Li-Ion-Batteries and enterprises for mechanical engineering.

• Division hydrogen and batteries