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Upscaling high-areal-capacity battery electrodes

Nature Energy volume 10, pages 295–307 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Moving battery technology from the laboratory to large-scale production is a necessary step in achieving cost competitiveness for high-energy-density batteries. So far, academic research has focused on the active material of the electrode and little attention has been paid to cell-level design, hindering the realization of this goal. Therefore, upscaling high-areal-capacity electrode sheets is proposed as a practical way forward. Here we evaluate the impact of high-areal-capacity electrodes on cell energy densities, energy consumption during electrode fabrication and the cost efficiency of cell production. By examining the integration of scalable roll-to-roll electrode-manufacturing techniques (such as slurry casting and dry coating) with the materials chemistry of the electrode components, electrode structure design and cell performance, we aim to outline the areas of development for high-areal-capacity electrodes and provide a structured pathway for bridging the gap between laboratory innovations and industrial scale-up.

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Fig. 1: Practical viability of electrode-based approaches for achieving high-energy-density batteries.
Fig. 2: Manufacturing and physico-chemical challenges of R2R high-areal-capacity battery electrodes.
Fig. 3: Electrochemical challenges of the high-areal-capacity battery electrodes.
Fig. 4: Development directions for scalable high-areal-capacity battery electrodes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (RS-2024-00344021 and RS-2024-00455177) and LG Energy Solution. G.Y. acknowledges the support from the Center for Mesoscale Transport Properties, an Energy Frontier Research Center supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under award #DE-SC0012673, as well as from the Welch Foundation F-1861.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Jung-Hui Kim, Nag-Young Kim, Zhengyu Ju.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Jung-Hui Kim, Nag-Young Kim, Young-Kuk Hong, Kyu-Dong Kang, Jung-Hyun Pang, Seok-Ju Lee, Seong-Seok Chae & Sang-Young Lee

  2. Materials Science and Engineering Program and Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Zhengyu Ju & Guihua Yu

  3. LG Energy Solution Research, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

    Moon-Soo Park & Je-Young Kim

  4. Department of Battery Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Sang-Young Lee

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Contributions

J.-H.K., N.-Y.K. and S.-Y.L. conceived the project. J.-H.K., N.-Y.K. and M.-S.P. investigated the industrial electrode manufacturing processes. J.-H.K. performed the specific energy and cost analyses of the cells. Z.J. conducted the theoretical calculations of cell performance. J.-H.K., K.-D.K. and S.-J.L. conducted the literature studies on slurry-cast electrode processing. J.-H.K., N.-Y.K., J.-H.P. and S.-S.C. carried out the literature studies on dry-coated electrode processing. J.-H.K., Z.J. and Y.-K.H. performed the literature studies on alternative electrode-processing methods. J.-Y.K., G.Y. and S.-Y.L. supervised the overall project. All authors contributed to the writing and revision of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Je-Young Kim, Guihua Yu or Sang-Young Lee.

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Kim, JH., Kim, NY., Ju, Z. et al. Upscaling high-areal-capacity battery electrodes. Nat Energy 10, 295–307 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-025-01720-0

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