Fabrication of battery separator by coating with sulfonated cellulose nanofibrils on kraft paper and inkjet paper substrates : Tillverkning av batteriseparator genom bestrykning med sulfonerad cellulosananofibriller på kraft papper och bläckstråle papper

Sammanfattning: Modified nanocellulose have distinctive qualities and have drawn a lot of interest from a variety of fields. It is a natural, sustainable product that is manufactured from plant-based materials like wood and other renewable resources. It is also biodegradable. It is a possible material for battery separators because of its great mechanical strength, flexibility, and ability to create a stable and consistent membrane. Due to the cost of using it as a membrane, it has been investigated in this work to see if it can be coated onto a substrate and used as battery separator. In this work sulfonated cellulose nanofibrils (SCNF) has been used to be coated on kraft paper and inkjet paper using a rod coater. Parameters like concentration, thickness and substrates have been varied in this experiment. Viscosity was measured using Brookfield instrument to measure the viscosity for 0,5% SCNF and 1,5% SCNF. The coating was carried out using a rod coater and varying between two rods to influence the thickness, the coating used concentrations of 0,5% SCNF and 1,5% SCNF and two different substrates, kraft paper and inkjet paper. Thickness was determined to study the effect of the variation in rod. The mechanical strength was tested on the coated paper substrates and compared the results to the noncoated substrates as reference, the mechanical strength showed an improvement with the coated SCNF substrates. Permeance through the Gurley method was studied in order to understand how the coated substrates behaves compared to the noncoated. Contact angle was determined as well to understand the wettability of the coated substrates and how they would behave as separators in zinc ion batteries. The contact angle decreased with increasing concentration of the SCNF which is a result of the sulfonate groups. Cross sections were analyzed using SEM to study the influence of the coating to the substrates. Ionic conductivity was also tested to evaluate the possibility of the coated substrates as separators.