Electrochemical Deposition of Nanostructured Cobalt and Copper Oxide Battery Electrodes

• Riddhima Bhasin, Biological Sciences, University of Delaware

• Rachel Davidson, Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Delaware

The ever-growing industry of electric vehicles necessitates improvements in charging rates and battery lifespans. Though additive manufacturing can afford electrodes that possess enhanced performances with tunable 3D pathways for ion and electron transport, ink-based printed battery products suffer from low conductivity and mechanical stability over extended cycles due to significant post-manufacturing modifications. Electrochemical deposition, on the other hand, can provide better material adhesion to improve stability and more precise control over crystal structure and morphology by tuning synthetic parameters such as the applied current density and deposition time. This structural control can be further amplified by the addition of directing-ligands which can preferentially bind certain crystallographic planes, slow the growth of those crystal planes, and enable the global structure to be reflective of the nature of the ordering at the atomic scale.

In this research, we explored the electrochemical synthesis of cobalt oxide, which serves as a precursor to the cathode material LiCoO₂, as well as colloidal synthesis routes for crystalline cobalt oxides which could be electrophoretically deposited onto current collectors. We additionally investigated the electrochemical growth of crystalline Cu and Cu oxides, which can serve as battery current collectors. By slightly modifying synthetic condition, namely, temperature, ligands, precursors, and time, various morphologies like cubes, multipods, quatre-foils, and octahedra were achieved. Upon reduction of these surfaces to the metallic state, they can serve as templates to control the morphology of various battery electrodes. Future work will focus on using spatially controlled electrodeposition to design electrochemically printed electrodes.