Semi-dry printing process for sustainable lithium-ion battery electrode manufacturing

Current wet slurry process for lithium-ion battery electrode manufacturing raises significant concerns regarding energy consumption and environment sustainability due to its reliance on large volumes of toxic solvent. Meanwhile, the industrial adoption of emerging dry electrode technologies remains limited by material compatibility and processing constraints. To address these challenges, we present a semi-dry printing approach that bridges wet and dry electrode manufacturing while avoiding their respective limitations. This method involves spreading a layer of premixed feedstock onto a current collector, followed by selective inkjet deposition of pico-litre solvents to locally activate binder via dissolution. This strategy reduces solvent usage by approximately fivefold, corresponding to projected reduction of 32% in processing cost and 44% in energy consumption. Physical and electrochemical analysis reveal that semidry printed LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2 (NMC811) electrodes exhibited enhanced transport kinetics enabled by an optimised microstructure, delivering higher maximum power and energy densities than conventional slurrycast electrodes. These results establish the potential of semi-dry electrode printing as a practical and scalable manufacturing solution for next-generation lithium-ion batteries.