Water‐soluble Polypyrrole‐Polybis(4‐oxy benzene sulfonic acid)phosphazene Composites and Investigation of Their Performance as Cathode Binder in Li‐ion Batteries

Current electric storage systems eagerly focus on high‐power and energy‐dense Lithium‐ion batteries to cope with increasing energy storage demands. Since cathode materials are one of the bottlenecks of these batteries, there is much interest in layered lithium‐rich manganese oxide‐based (LLMO) cathodes which can develop this technology. However, Initial Coulombic Efficiency (ICE) loss, poor rate performance and cycling instability issues are still persistent as problems to be solved for these materials. Recent research shows that water‐soluble binders are effective in improving the performance of LLMO materials. Herein, we describe the synthesis, characterisation, and application of a series of water‐soluble composites as a binder for LLMO cathodes. The PPy is introduced as part of the binder to improve the electronic conductivity and two different oxidants and various PPy to PSAP ratios were used to optimise the final properties. The electrochemical performance and morphology of the cathodes before and after cycling were investigated and compared with the conventional PVDF binder. The LLMO−2c electrode showed excellent charge‐discharge performance, especially at 5 C and 10 C rates, and high cycling stability at 0.2 C whilst maintaining a final capacity of 184 mAh/g after 200 cycles, which is equal to 89.3 % capacity retention. Water‐soluble polypyrrole‐polybis(4‐oxybenzene sulfonic acid) phosphazene‐based composite binders allow the preparation of layered lithium‐rich manganese oxide‐based cathodes in an environmentally friendly and green way. They provide low charge transfer resistance due to the presence of conductive PPy in their formulation which leads to excellent capacity retention of almost 90 % even after 200 cycles and high C‐rate performance.