Establishing the PLASMANODE M-ERAnet consortium

The battery market is expected to drastically increase in the next few years, given the demand for electrical energy storage in vehicles, for stationary applications and for small electronics. According to the European Battery Alliance (www.eba250.com), the global market should reach 250 G€/year by 2025. However, this huge deployment requires the development of new solutions, both in terms of materials and manufacturing processes, to make sure that batteries consist in sustainable energy storage systems and do not become another environmental issue. To that aim, the present project aims at modifying emergent Li-ion battery materials in order (i) to make them compatible with a water-based manufacturing process, (ii) to increase their global performance in electrode configuration by improving the dispersion of the conductive additive, (iii) to increase their lifetime upon cycling, (iv) to facilitate their recycling by avoiding the use of fluorinated binders that are hard to separate from the other components at the battery end-of-life. Therefore, the PLASMANODE project deals with the development of innovative Li-ion battery manufacturing processes using (i) new functionalized electrode materials and (ii) water-based electrode deposition techniques. The goal is to realize carbon coatings on powder material, both on active anode material and on conductive additives, using a low-temperature plasma process. The coating will (i) protect the electrode material from its environment, either upon electrode processing using water or upon cycling and (ii) allow for optimal dispersion of the powder in the water-based ink formulated for electrode manufacturing.