Poly-Lactic Acid/Graphene Anode for Lithium-Ion Batteries Manufactured with a Facile Hot-Pressed Solvent-Free Process

Abstract

For environmental and cost purposes, solvent-free electrode manufacturing techniques are needed for lithium-ion cell technology. In this work, we present a stand-alone lithium-ion anode, containing graphene and Poly-lactic acid (PLA) as active and binding material, respectively, manufactured in a free-solvent process. To this purpose, PLA and graphene were thoroughly mixed and a hot-press was used to form the resulting electrode. At a half-cell configuration, the electrodes exhibited a stable reversible specific capacity of more than 300 mAh g−1 at C/15 for over 450 cycles and a promising C-rate performance of around 90 mAh g−1 at 6 C of constant current mode. After cyclic voltammetry analysis of the electrochemical behavior and the kinetics of the prepared electrodes, the Li atom diffusion coefficient was calculated around 1.2 × 10−8 cm2/s during lithiation and 0.6 × 10−8 cm2/s during delithiation. Finally, we show that this electrode manufacturing technique can be upscaled for higher mass loading and corresponding areal capacity at least up to 1 mAh/cm2 and thus it can be considered for practical applications.