An Effective Mixing for Lithium Ion Battery Slurries

Darjen Liu¹, Li-Chun Chen¹, Ta-Jo Liu^1*, Tan Fan¹, Erh-Yeh Tsou¹, Carlos Tiu²

¹Department of Chemical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu.
²Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia.

DOI: 10.4236/aces.2014.44053                

Abstract

Coating slurries for making anodes and cathodes of lithium batteries contain a large percentage of solid particles of different chemicals, sizes and shapes in highly viscous media. A thorough mixing of these slurries poses a major challenge in the battery manufacturing process. Several types of mixing devices and mixing methods were examined. The conventional turbine stirrers or ball mill mixers could be adequately used for the preparation of anode slurries, but not suitable for cathode slurries. In this study, a newly three-dimensional mixer, in conjunction with a multi-stage mixing sequence was proposed. The mixing effectiveness was examined by means of rheological measurements and flow visualization techniques. Preliminary electrical performance results indicated that the battery obtained using the 3D mixing device with a multi-stage mixing sequence was more efficient to those obtained from conventional methods.

Keywords

Lithium Ion Battery Electrode Slurries, Three-Dimensional Mixer, Flow Visualization, Battery Performance, Rheology

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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