Elucidation of the dispersion characterization of lithium-ion battery slurry under effects of both composite conductive agent amount and carbon nanotubes to graphene mass ratio--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Elucidation of the dispersion characterization of lithium-ion battery slurry under effects of both composite conductive agent amount and carbon nanotubes to graphene mass ratio

Zhilong Wang^a, Bingjia Li^a, Xiao Yang^a, Jianhang Lu^a, Jiatan Zhang^a, Chunguo Zhou ^a, Irfan Bahiuddin^b, Bo Sun^a, Tong Zhao^{a c *}

a Faculty of Mechanical and Precision Instrument Engineering, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an, 710048, China
b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, 55281, Indonesia
c Key Laboratory of Green and Intelligent Development and Efficient Utilization of Strategic Mineral Resources of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Faculty of Electromechanical and Automation, Xinjiang University of Technology, Hotan City, 848000, China

10.1016/j.partic.2026.05.006

Volume 115, August 2026, Pages 35-46

Received 24 March 2026, Revised 8 May 2026, Accepted 11 May 2026, Available online 17 May 2026, Version of Record 22 May 2026.

E-mail: tongzhao@xaut.edu.cn

Highlights

• LiCoO₂ particles are well dispersed within LIB slurry when φcom2 = 0.5%.

• Both LiCoO₂ particles and the composite conductive agent are well dispersed to form network when m_CNTS: m_Gr = 4:1.

• The best synergistic effect between CNTs and Gr provides a solid foundation for LIB production.

Abstract

This manuscript mainly proposed an effective method to well disperse the composite conductive agent which is composed of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene (Gr) in lithium-ion battery (LIB) slurry. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and gravitational sedimentation (GS) are employed to characterize the electrochemical, morphological and stability characterizations of LIB slurry, respectively. Specifically, electrochemical characterizations of LIB electrode slurries are performed by fitting Nyquist plots with a 10-parameter EEC, and quantitative morphological analysis of SEM images is conducted using a Mask R-CNN instance segmentation algorithm, both of which were proposed in our prior published research works. Consequently, the dispersion characterizations of LIB slurry are able to be summarized as follows: LiCoO₂ particles are well dispersed in LIB slurry at φ_com2 = 0.5%, by contrast, the composite conductive agent achieves superior coating and networking of LiCoO₂ particles under the conditions of both φ_com2 = 0.5% and m_CNTs:m_Gr = 4:1, due to the maximized CNTs-Gr synergistic effect. Meanwhile, the formed three-dimensional “long-range” conductive network maintains the stability of its internal skeleton structure during the sedimentation of LIB slurry. This finding holds significant potential to advance the application of CNTs/Gr composite conductive agents in LIB slurry.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Composite conductive agent; Lithium-ion battery slurry; Carbon nanotubes; Graphene

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