Nextrode – electrode manufacturing

Substantial benefits in battery performance can be realised by smarter assembly of the different materials that comprise the electrodes used in rechargeable batteries. These benefits apply equally to mature material systems already used commercially and to new emerging high performance battery systems. Nextrode is focused on researching, understanding and quantifying the potential of smart electrodes to improve energy storage devices, and developing new practical manufacturing innovations that can scale smart electrode benefits to the industrial scale.

Nextrode is investigating how to engineer a new generation of battery electrode structures. Novel developments in electrode structuring are being explored by applying improved scientific understanding of the phenomena involved in the slurry-casting of Li-ion battery electrodes.

The project is:

• exploiting techniques that give more control over the dynamics of particle coating and electrode formation to ensure a final structure that best realises the intrinsic properties of the electrode materials.

• developing new models and using predictive simulations to suggest the optimum arrangement of materials in an electrode and inventing processes that allow these structures to be realised in practice.

• using 3D characterisation techniques to quantify designed structures and to relate their structural features to the electrochemical performance of electrodes.

Nextrode supports UK manufacturers and energy storage supply
chain companies via increased cell performance, added value in
electrode processing, and improved safety and sustainability.