High Performance Lithium Battery Anodes from Non-Water based Graphene

High performance lithium battery anode plates were made from processed arc discharge graphene. Arc discharge graphene has been produced from glow electrolytic thermal arc discharging of graphite rods [1-3], different from graphene or reduced graphene prepared through other means [4-11], because it maintains high crystallinity and planar characteristics of graphite marked by low ID/IG and XRD peak (2θ = 26 ⁰C). Arc discharge Graphene was sonicated in NMP for hours until fully exfoliated and able to film coat without impediments on the rougher side of the electrode copper film. Sonicated Graphene was dried in the vacuum oven. Anode plates were prepared by homogenizing the sonicated graphene in PVDF saturated NMP (0.53% NMP; 4% superP carbon black; and 2.25wt% PVDF) for 1 hr. The anode slurry was coated on the copper plates using automatic doctor blade film coater at a speed of 100mm/min. Anode plates were dried at 80 ⁰C for and cured for 120 ⁰C for 2 hrs in vacuum oven. Coin cells of NMC//HGR were made and tested in CT2001A. The capacity of the anode cycled at 1C was ~1083mAhg-1. This very high capacity of the graphene anode represents 188.3% increase over nominal graphite anodes, and one of the highest reported in published literature.