Simulating Solid-State Battery Cathode Manufacturing via Wet-Processing with Resolved Active Material Geometries

Prior to the development of a solid-state battery cell, researchers have limited knowledge about the microstructure of the electrodes and how they are affected by manufacturing. Therefore, numerical simulations can be considered as a powerful tool to link the fabrication process to the final microstructure of the electrode. In this paper, a numerical simulation of a wet-processed solid-state battery cathode with a formulation of 75 % LiNi9Mn0.5Co0.5O2 (NMC), 17.5 %LPSCl, 5 % Timcal C65 and 2.5 % Polyisobutene (PIB) is presented. From nano-computed tomography images, realistic shapes of active material particles are extracted and used in the simulation, which is well-calibrated to experimental data. In particular, we study the effects of calendering on the microstructure of the simulated cathode and deduce structure-property relations.