Lithium-ion (Liion) batteries provide the highest specific capacity among commercially available battery technologies and have dominated the portable electronics battery market in the past few decades. They represent more than 1/3 of the overall $23.5 Billion battery market. However, these batteries have reached their theoretical limit for specific capacity (i.e. battery run time between charges for a certain battery weight or volume), and there is a critical unmet need to develop new technologies that can provide significantly higher battery run time/capacity. To this end, companies are heavily investing in material development for future batteries (not commercial yet) with two key focus areas – 1) next generation Li ion batteries with new and advanced electrode materials and 2) disruptive breakthrough technologies such as Lithium-sulfur or lithium air batteries.

Researchers at Drexel have developed innovative methods to fabricate freestanding battery electrodes that are both “binder-free” and “current-collector-free” with the objective to lower device weight, reduce cost and enhance performance. By eliminating these heavy inactive components — binders and current collectors —we can boost effective specific capacities or run times of any battery technology by over 50% in comparison with powder-based electrodes (the state-of-the-art in electrode industry). The commercial significance of our materials has been validated by the strong level of interest we have already received from many of the leading suppliers in this sector including Panasonic, Bosch, Maxwell and several others.