Novel solvent-free direct coating process for battery electrodes and their electrochemical performance

•We demonstrate a rapid and facile novel solvent-free direct coating process.•The hot-pressing time had an effect on the electrode morphologies and performance.•The DS-LTO-60 electrode showed excellent electrical conductivity and Li+ storage.•Dry-spraying process has significant potential as an important industrial technique.

We report a novel solvent-free direct coating process for fabricating a well-structured electrode. The manufacturing process was rapid and facile, involving only dry-spraying of the solvent-free electrode component mixture and a subsequent isothermal hot-pressing. The electrochemical and physicochemical properties of the dry-sprayed electrode with hot-pressing were evaluated in order to understand the correlation between a preparation parameter, morphological characteristic of the electrode, and cell performance. The hot-pressing time had an effect on the binder distribution, which in turn resulted in different electrode morphologies and performance. The dry-sprayed LTO electrode prepared at a hot-pressing time of 60 min had excellent electrical conductivity and Li+ storage capacity, owing to its electron transport structure, which was more suitable than the prepared electrodes at other hot-pressing conditions.

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