Lithium Battery Electrode Coating Uniformity Evaluation: In-situ AB Surface Resistance Test Method

1. Preface

The performance and consistency of lithium-ion batteries are heavily influenced by the quality and uniformity of the electrode coating process. As the industry increasingly adopts double-sided coating techniques to improve production efficiency, ensuring consistent conductive networks on both the A and B sides of electrodes has become critical. Non-uniform coatings can lead to imbalanced current distribution, localized lithium plating, and reduced cycle life.

This paper introduces an in-situ AB surface resistance test method developed by IEST to evaluate the coating uniformity of cathode and anode materials. Using the BER2500 electrode resistance tester, this approach simultaneously measures total through-resistance, A-side resistance, and B-side resistance, providing a rapid and effective way to monitor battery electrode coating quality and support process optimization.

2. Evaluate the Significance of AB Surface Coating Uniformity

The so-called coating uniformity refers to the consistency of the coating thickness or coating amount distribution in the coating area. The better the thickness of the coating or the consistency of the glue coating, the better the uniformity of the coating, and vice versa. Currently, there is no unified measurement index for coating uniformity. Battery cell companies usually use the deviation or percentage deviation of the coating thickness or coating amount at each point in a certain area relative to the average coating thickness or coating amount in the area, it can also be measured by the difference between the maximum and minimum coating thickness or coating amount in a certain area. Coating thickness is usually expressed in µm. However, the accuracy of thickness measurement is often unsatisfactory, resulting in poor discrimination in this method test. Therefore, battery cell companies urgently need an effective and rapid testing method to distinguish the coating uniformity of AB surfaces to improve battery performance and quality control capabilities.

2.1  Possible Reasons for AB Topcoat Differences

The electrode coating process stage involves many process parameters, each of which has a different impact on the coated electrode. For example, in the incoming slurry state, the electrode slurry consists of micron-sized active solid particles and nano-sized conductive agent particles suspended in a binder solution, solid particles are affected by gravity, Brownian motion, buoyancy, etc., and undergo motion processes such as settlement, random Brownian motion, agglomeration-deaggregation, therefore, the distribution state of the slurry conductive agent, active particles and the interaction between them will inevitably change, which will have an impact on the electrode coating uniformity. Therefore, during the electrode coating process, differences may occur in the length direction of the electrode and the AB surface, such as inconsistent coating thickness or coating surface density, different distribution states of conductive agent and binder, etc.

At the same time, during the drying process of the electrode wet coating, the binder and conductive agent particles dissolved in the solvent may also migrate to the surface of the electrode due to the solvent drying process, this causes the adhesive to float and the conductive agent to be distributed unevenly, especially after the A side is coated and dried, and then the B side is coated. When the B side drying parameters are the same as A side, due to the influence of the coating on surface A, the drying state and rate of the wet coating on surface B may be different, which can easily lead to differences in the uniformity of surface AB, in particular, the distribution state of the binder and conductive agent results in differences in the bonding strength and conductivity of the coating surface AB.

2.2  Impact of AB Top Coating Differences on Battery Performance

The difference in AB top coating will inevitably lead to poor battery consistency, especially the difference in AB top coating may lead to the following problems: (1) The actual N/P ratio of the AB side is different due to inconsistent surface density on both sides, or inconsistent active material utilization due to different conductivities, under conditions of high-rate charge-discharge or overcharge, uneven current distribution may occur, resulting in lithium precipitation on one side; (2) Due to the difference in conductivity between the AB side of the electrode, the two sides of the battery have different lithiation degrees or different states of charge. During long-term cycling, different stresses accumulate on the AB side for a long time, resulting in cracks in the electrode coating peeling off and failure. Therefore, it is of great significance to evaluate the uniformity and difference of AB top coating.

3. Experimental Methods

Equipment Model: BER2500(IEST). 14 mm sample diameter; controllable contact pressure; automated data logging. The BER2500’s AB test returns three values per contact: total through-resistance, A-surface resistance and B-surface resistance in a single push-down measurement. The equipment is shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b).

Figure 1 (a) BER2500 appearance; (b) BER2500 structure diagram

Procedure:

1. Randomly sample multiple measurement sites across the electrode foil (we used 10 locations per sheet).

2. At each site, perform the single-push AB test under fixed contact pressure (e.g., 25 MPa) to obtain: R_total, RA, RB.

3. Compute statistics per sheet and per side: mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation (COV = std/mean ×100%). Larger COV indicates poorer uniformity.

Why this metric: Unlike thickness-only methods, AB-surface resistance directly measures the electrically relevant outcome of coating heterogeneity — conductive network continuity and contact resistance to the current collector.

Note: Where n represents the number of tests, Ṝ represents the average value of all test resistances.

4. Data Analysis

Figure 2 shows the test results of the in-situ AB side of different double-sided coated positive electrode sheets under a pressure of 25MPa, of which 2(a) and 2(b) are two sets of repeatability tests for the positive electrode sheet 1. 2(c) and 2(d) are the tests of positive electrode 2 and 3 respectively, and each group selects 10 different sites for testing. The red dots in the figure are the average values of the 10 measurement points, and the green triangle marking points are the calculation results of the resistance coefficient of variation, or COV, of the 10 test points. The size of the COV value is the main reference basis for judging the uniformity of the electrode coating.

Judging from the test results of positive electrode piece 1, the resistance values of the A-side resistors in the two groups of tests are slightly larger than the resistance values of the B-side resistors, indicating that there is a difference in the electrode coating uniformity between the A-side and B-side of the positive electrode material and the test results are basically consistent with the resistance of surface A + surface resistance of B ≈ total through resistance. Therefore, the resistance percentage of surface A and surface B of the electrode in the total resistance of the electrode can be calculated, at the same time, there is a small difference in the resistance and COV (both less than 5%) of the two sets of test results of electrode 1, which can further illustrate that the coating uniformity of this electrode is good.

Figures 2(c) and 2(d) show the test results of positive electrodes 2 and 3 respectively. From the data, the resistance values of electrodes 2 and 3 are both greater than electrode 1, moreover, the electrode coating uniformity of the AB surface of electrode 2 is better than that of electrode 3. The test results of both electrodes are consistent with the resistance of surface A + surface resistance of B ≈ total penetration resistance.

Figure 2 (a) and (b) two in-situ AB surface test results of cathode electrode 1, (c) and (d) are the in-situ AB surface test results of positive electrode 2 and positive electrode 3 respectively.

Figure 3(a) and Figure 3(b) show the in-situ AB surface test of two cathode electrode with different process formulas. As shown, the resistance uniformity of the AB surface of cathode electrode 1 is better, the AB surface resistance uniformity of the cathode electrode piece 2 is relatively poor. Figure 3(c) and (d) show the AB surface resistance of carbon-coated aluminum foil and primer-coated aluminum foil. Both types of primer-coated aluminum foil show that the B-surface resistance is greater than the A-surface resistance.

Figure 3 (a) and (b) are respectively the in-situ AB surface test results of cathode electrode 1 and cathode electrode piece 2, (c) and (d) are respectively the in-situ AB surface test results of carbon-coated aluminum foil 1 and primer-coated aluminum foil 1.

5. Conclusion

The BER2500 in-situ AB-surface resistance test delivers a fast, sensitive and manufacturing-relevant metric for electrode coating uniformity. By resolving A- and B-surface resistances and using COV as a uniformity index, manufacturers can detect subtle process or formulation issues that thickness gauges miss, optimize the electrode coating process, and ultimately improve cell consistency and reliability.

6. References

[1] Lang Peng, Ren Jian. Thinking about Development of Chinese Lithium-ionPower Battery Critical Process Equipment [J]. Special Equipment for the Electronic Industry, 2009, 38(11): 23-26.

[2] Song Lan, Xiong Ruoyu, Song Huaxiong, et al. Multiscale nonuniformity of lithium-ion batteries [J]. Energy Storage Science and Technology, 2022, 11(02): 2095-4239.2021.0409.