As increasing markets for Lithium‒ion battery (LiB), several environmental issues have attained great attention. Especially, the organic solvent N‒Methyl‒2‒Pyrrolidone (NMP), commonly used in the traditional slurry casting process for fabricating LiB electrodes, will be about to be regulated due to its toxicity and the environmental concerns. Therefore, the production of LiB electrodes by a dry process without using NMP organic solvents is of special interest nowadays. In the dry process, it is generally accepted that 1‒dimensional carbon materials like carbon nanotubes (CNT) are beneficial than conventional carbon conductor such as carbon blacks (CB). However, CB is inevitably included during the CNT production, simultaneously as an impurity. Refining CNT from CNT/CB mixture can cause another cost obviously. On the other hand, there have been limited information to study dispersion of carbon materials in electrode with respect to dispersion method and types of carbon conductor. Here, we systematically test the effect of dispersibility of carbon conductor in electrode according to dispersion method and type of carbon conductors. In addition, effect of CB amount in carbon conductor are also elucidated on manufacturing procedure, properties of electrode and their electrochemical performances.

Effect of carbon conductor dispersion and composition in dry cathode electrode on LiB performances
    Abstract
    1 Introduction
    2 Experimental
        2.1 Materials
        2.2 Fabrication of cathode electrode via wet process (thinky mixer and three‒roll mill process)
        2.3 Fabrication of dry cathode sheets via grinding method
        2.4 Assembly of 2032-type coin cell
        2.5 Cycle performances
    3 Results and discussion
        3.1 Comparison of the electrochemical properties of CNT and CB as conductive additives
        3.2 Trace of the conductive pathway
        3.3 Effect of CB impurity in carbon conductor on electrochemical performances
    4 Conclusion
    Acknowledgements 
    References

• Chae Yeon Lim(Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, South Korea)
• Gyori Park(Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, South Korea)
• Kyung Jin Lee(Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, South Korea) Corresponding author