A comparative study on polypropylene separators coated with different inorganic materials for lithium-ion batteries

doi:10.1007/s11705-017-1648-9

Front. Chem. Sci. Eng.

2017, Vol. 11

Issue (3) : 346-352 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-017-1648-9

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A comparative study on polypropylene separators coated with different inorganic materials for lithium-ion batteries

Linghui Yu¹, Jiansong Miao¹, Yi Jin², Jerry Y.S. Lin¹(

)

¹. School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
². State Key Laboratory of Operation and Control of Renewable Energy & Storage Systems, China Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing 100192, China

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Abstract

Coating commercial porous polyolefin separators with inorganic materials can improve the thermal stability of the polyolefin separators and hence improve the safety of lithium-ion batteries. Several different inorganic materials have been studied for the coating. However, there lacks a study on how different inorganic materials affect the properties of separators, in terms of thermal stability and cell performance. Herein, we present such a study on coating a commercial polypropylene separator with four inorganic materials, i.e., Al₂O₃, SiO₂, ZrO₂ and zeolite. All inorganic coatings have improved thermal stability of the separators although with differences. The coating layers add 28%–45% of electrical resistance compared with the pure polypropylene separator, but all the cells prepared with the coated polypropylene separators have the same electrical chemical performance as the uncoated separator in terms of rate capability and capacities at different temperatures.

Keywords lithium-ion battery battery safety composite separator porosity tortuosity

Corresponding Author(s): Jerry Y.S. Lin

Just Accepted Date: 07 April 2017 Online First Date: 05 June 2017 Issue Date: 23 August 2017

Cite this article:

Linghui Yu,Jiansong Miao,Yi Jin, et al. A comparative study on polypropylene separators coated with different inorganic materials for lithium-ion batteries[J]. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng., 2017, 11(3): 346-352.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fcse/EN/10.1007/s11705-017-1648-9
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fcse/EN/Y2017/V11/I3/346

Fig.1 SEM images of the inorganic coating layers. Coating materials: (a) Al₂O₃, (b) SiO₂, (c) ZrO₂ and (d) zeolite. Inset in (c), a magnified image of ZrO₂, showing the large particle is aggregated from small particles

Tab.1 Properties of the coating materials and the coating layers

Fig.2 (a) Photographs of three coated separators after thermal treatment at 130 °C for 30 min. Photographs for the pure PP and the Al₂O₃ coated separator can be found in our previous report [28]; (b) thermal shrinkage obtained based on the photographs. Image J was used for the shrinkage analysis. The composite separators are denoted by the coating materials

Fig.3 Electrolyte contact angle of the pure PP and the coating side of the coated separators. Images recorded at 90 s after dropping the electrolyte. The composite separators are denoted by the coating materials

Fig.4 Gurley seconds (100 mL) of the pure PP and the composite separators. The composite separators are denoted by the coating materials

Fig.5 Electrical resistivity of the pure PP and the composite separators when filled with the electrolyte. The composite separators are denoted by the coating materials

Fig.6 NCM cell performance with different separators. (a) Galvanostatic charge/discharge curves of the 3^rd cycle at a current density of 30 mA·g⁻¹ at room temperature; (b) rate and cycling performance at room temperature; (c) cell performance at a current density of 100 mA·g⁻¹ at different temperature. The composite separators are denoted by the coating materials

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