Manufacturing woven carbon fabrics with electrode function via high-pressure spray of active lithium-ion particles

Abstract

In this paper, an innovative approach was presented to manufacture woven carbon fabric cathodes via high-pressure spray to coat LiFePO4 (LFP), acetylene black (AB) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) onto carbon fibers. The fabrics were desized to improve conductivity prior to coating. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were adopted to ensure that the selected process parameters could achieve complete removal of the polymer sizing and dispersion of the LFP particles on both the spray surface and inner architecture of the fabrics. The subsequent electrochemical characterization showed that the fabric cathodes could, on average, produce excellent specific capacities of over 110 mAh/g and areal capacities of over 3.0 mAh/cm2 with good rate performance. With 98% efficiency and 0.97 retention after 100 cycles, the cathodes also depicted superb long-cycle performance, meaning that the coating with electrochemical activity could adhere firmly to the fiber surface.