Impact of Water-Based Binder on the Electrochemical Performance of P2-Na0.67Mn0.6Fe0.25Co0.1502 Electrodes in Na-Ion Batteries
Aqueous binders are highly recommended in battery production for (i) reducing the costs and, (ii) increasing the safety due to the absence of an organic solvent. Unfortunately, the impact of water during the electrode formulation on sodiated phases is still unclear and deserves investigation. In this work, we used carboxymethylcellulose (Na-CMC) binder to prepare electrodes of a high energy density P2-layered oxide material, Na0.67Mn0.6Fe0.25Co0.1502 (NaMFC). We investigated the effects of water-based electrode preparation on the electrochemical performance, by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and neutron diffraction. The water leads to degradation of the material limiting the reversible specific charge at 90 mAh·g−1 instead of 120 mAh·g−1 obtained with N-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) solvent with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as binder. The protons exchanged in the structure, occurring during electrode preparation, are assumed to disrupt the Na ions extraction mechanism limiting the specific charge of such a material.