Karthik Jayakumar presents his master thesis project

Supervisor: Jinhua Sun, IMS

Examiner: Uta Klement, IMS

Opponent: Amit Kumar Siva Kumar

Abstract

An increasing need for sustainable energy has put lithium-ion battery in the forefront of the energy race. Traditional batteries cannot meet the energy demands of the future. Moreover, the use of toxic N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent causes high energy consumption, high cost, and environmental concern of the current battery manufacturing process. In order to eliminate the use of NMP solvent during the electrode processing, here the aim of the project is to modify the surface of cathode material and make it favourable for the water-based electrode processing. Considering the stability issue of cathode in water, graphene, which is impermeable to water, was used as coating materials to protect the surface of cathode material. In addition, introducing graphene in the Li-ion battery improves the performance of the battery as it enhances the conductivity and increases the surface area. The graphene-coated cathode materials were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The preliminary results demonstrated that the graphene coating could improve the cycling stability and increase the capacity of the lithium-ion battery.