Design of lithium cobalt oxide electrodes with high thermal conductivity and electrochemical performance using carbon nanotubes and diamond particles

Thermal management remains one of the major challenges in the design of safe and reliable Li-ion batteries. We show that composite electrodes assembled from commercially available 100 μm long carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and LiCoO₂ (LCO) particles demonstrate the in-plane thermal conductivity of 205.8 W/m*K. This value exceeds the thermal conductivity of dry conventional laminated electrodes by about three orders of magnitude. The cross-plane thermal conductivity of CNT-based electrodes is in the same range as thermal conductivities of conventional laminated electrodes. The CNT-based electrodes demonstrate a similar capacity to conventional laminated design electrodes, but revealed a better rate performance and stability. The introduction of diamond particles into CNT-based electrodes further improves the rate performance. Our lightweight, flexible electrode design can potentially be a general platform for fabricating polymer binder- and aluminum and copper current collector-free electrodes from a broad range of electrochemically active materials with efficient thermal management.