MRL Battery Fabrication and Characterization Lab

Location: 426 Materials Research Laboratory

The Battery Lab at MRL provides primarily the fabrication, processing, and characterization of Lithium-ion batteries. It has all the facilities to fabricate pouch cells and coin cells in the laboratory scale including their complete electrochemical characterizations at room temperature. The Lab is equipped with two glove boxes which house essential equipment to handle air sensitive materials during cell fabrication. The Lab provides training, lab supplies and necessary battery components to the users to help assemble the pouch and coin cells. Upon staff approval, the users may also bring their customized electrode compositions, prepare the slurries, and cast the electrode slurry coatings on battery grade Aluminum or Copper metal foils. We require the users to contact staff to schedule the facilities before they plan to use the Battery Lab and obtain a cost estimate for the work.

This is the current lab layout in the room MRL 426:

Equipment inside the gloveboxes:

MTI Pouch Cell Electrode Die Cutter
MTI Ultrasonic Electrode Tab Welder
MTI Pouch Cell Vacuum Sealer
MTI Hot/Cold Calendaring Machine
Tmax Automated Coin Cell Crimper

Details of the main equipment:

Double Impulse Foot Sealer:
This equipment is used to seal the three sides of the pouch sheet of the pouch cells at room temperature, then transfer the pouch cell inside the Glovebox for liquid electrolyte filling and sealing of the rest of the side of the pouch.

Model: AIE-410FD

Pouch Cell Electrode Die Cutter:

This equipment is used to precisely cut the pouch cell electrodes (cathode and anode) of any desired size. The electrodes size can vary depending on the pouch cell to be fabricated. Accordingly, the electrode template needs to be made and placed inside the electrode die cutter.

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Model: TMAX-MSK-180S

Ultrasonic Spot Welder:

This equipment is used to ultrasonically weld one tail end of the cathode electrode with Aluminum tab (strip) and similarly one tail end of the anode electrode with Nickel tab (strip). Each welding is done separately for making a pouch cell.

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Model: TMAX-VS-40A

Hot Roller Press (calendaring):

This equipment is required to roll the dried slurry electrodes (cathode and anode) to make the electrode coatings denser and to make the coating uniform in thickness. The dried electrode coatings on metal foils (Aluminum and Copper) are passed through the two rollers either at room temperature or at temperatures up to 100C.

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Model: TMAX-JS

Automated Film Slurry Coater:

This equipment is used to fabricate the battery electrode (cathode or anode) coating/film onto Aluminum or Copper metallic foil. It can produce a smooth coating with consistent thickness on all types of oxide materials. The coater uses an adjustable micrometer applicator (doctor-blade) to get superior quality electrodes.

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Model: TMAX-TMH-180C

Automated Electric Crimper for Coin Cell Assembly:

This equipment is used to fabricate CR20 series of coin cells inside the glovebox. All cell components after assembling, are placed into the crimper and crimped using the touch screen. The crimper machine is also able to disassemble the coin cells.

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Model: TMAX-MSK-160D

Heavy Duty Disc Cutter for Coin Cells:

This equipment is used for the precision cutting of round shaped discs. Normally, the discs can be made from the electrode (cathode/anode coating on metallic foils) and separator (polymer film). The available diameter of the disc die is 12, 15, 19 and 20mm. These electrodes and separators discs are used for making coin cells.

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Model: MSK-T-06

VMP3 Multi-channels Potentiostat / Galvanostat /EIS:

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VMP3 Multi-channels Potentiostat /Galvanostat / EIS (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) instrument is used in our Lab for battery research and testing. Electrochemical characterizations of batteries and supercapacitors such as charge/discharge cycling, current-voltage scan, impedance analysis and many more applications can be performed using this equipment. It can be used both for 2-electrode and 3-electrode systems. Prior training is required for using this instrument.

Lab location:

Room 426, Materials Research Laboratory

Staff Contact:

Primary contact:
Dr. Rajen Basu
rnb6@illinois.edu
Room# MRL 380

Secondary contact:
Dr. Mauro Sardela
sardela@illinois.edu
Room# MRL SC 2014