Toward High Resolution 3D Printing of Shape-Conformable Batteries via Vat Photopolymerization: Review and Perspective

Abstract

Date of publication xxxx 00, 0000, date of current version xxxx 00, 0000.

Additive manufacturing of LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 battery electrode material via vat photopolymerization precursor approach

“…Recent research in this area has made significant advances by utilizing 3D printing, owing to its ability to build intricate and tailored shapes with high resolution 8 – 11 . During the VPP process, a photopolymerizable resin is selectively polymerized to a crosslinked layer upon UV light exposure, and the procedure is repeated to create a macrostructure layer after layer with features down to 100 nm 12 . This technique has been employed to 3D print composite resins highly loaded with ceramic particles of Al 2 O 3 13 , ZrO 2 14 , and SiO 2 15 – 17 .…”

“…This work uses VPP printing combined with a precursor approach to circumvent these problems. The process involves the addition of soluble precursor salts in stoichiometric amounts into a classical photopolymerizable resin, followed by in-situ synthesis of the material upon thermal post-processing of the printed item 12 . This approach presents the advantage of free-flowing resins with low viscosity, and no detrimental UV light-scattering as the soluble precursor salts are completely mixed at the molecular level in the resin.…”

3D Printing Enables Customizable Batteries

“…In TPL, the resin is cured occurs by the intersection of two-photons, which allows greater printing accuracy and higher production rates. [34] Like FDM, the printable materials in VPP need a lot of photosensitive resin. Usually, the resulting polymer scaffold cannot be used directly as an electrode/electrolyte, but is often used as a precursor for electrode/electrolyte preparation or as a supporting skeleton to carry the active materials.…”

What Would Battery Manufacturing Look Like on the Moon and Mars?

“…Motivated by these conclusions, 3D printing of batteries (mostly Li-ion chemistry) has witnessed a growing interest in recent years. − Early studies on the topic have been focused specifically on material extrusion, due to the low price, high versatility, and ability to enable multi-material printing, essential to print all battery components . Material extrusion is divided into two main offshoots: Direct Ink Writing (DIW) and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM).…”

“…The addition of an adequate plasticizer into the filament is critical to allow the introduction of a high loading of active material and conductive additives . Other additive manufacturing technologies, namely vat photopolymerization (VPP) ,− and powder bed fusion (PBF), , have been recently employed to print battery components. A VPP printer is fed with a liquid photocurable resin, employed as material feedstock, and selectively exposed to a UV light to build 3D structures.…”