Korean researchers develop eco-friendly dry electrode technology to boost EV range, enable fast charging

South Korean researchers have developed a dry anode manufacturing technology that can dramatically cut battery charging times while extending the driving range of electric vehicles.

A research team led by Yoon Ji-hee at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) Convergence Materials Research Division, working jointly with a team led by Hwang In-seong at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI), developed what they describe as the country's first "shape-controlled graphite granule-based dry electrode manufacturing technology." The method produces high-performance batteries without relying on PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), the binder material central to existing dry electrode processes.

Dry electrode technology, which minimizes the use of organic solvents and drying steps in battery manufacturing, has drawn growing attention as a next-generation production process. The push comes as limited single-charge driving range continues to constrain broader electric vehicle adoption.

Dry electrodes offer advantages in reducing manufacturing costs and carbon emissions, but most existing approaches depend on PTFE as a key binder material, making the development of alternatives a critical industry challenge.

PTFE serves as the binder that holds together the various materials making up an electrode during dry electrode manufacturing. The material has significant drawbacks, however: it is expensive, degrades performance in anode environments, raises environmental regulation concerns as a fluorine-based compound, and has low adhesion — requiring an additional adhesive wet-coating step.

The joint research team addressed these limitations by applying the CMC-SBR binder system — already widely used in conventional wet electrode manufacturing for commercial batteries — to the dry electrode process, while redesigning the graphite particle structure to achieve a high-performance dry anode without PTFE.

The team granulated a slurry of graphite, conductive material and binder through a spray-drying process, reshaping the traditionally flat, plate-like graphite particles into spherical granule structures. The flat particles — similar in shape to sheets of paper — were rounded into compact spheres, allowing lithium ions to move more freely inside the battery. The approach created more uniform pathways for lithium-ion transport and resolved a long-standing problem in dry anodes: the degradation of charge-discharge performance as electrode thickness increases.

Performance tests showed that the new dry anode outperformed conventional slurry-based anodes in fast-charging capability and long-term cycle stability. The technology also demonstrated significantly improved lithium-ion diffusion under high energy density conditions, confirming the feasibility of thick-electrode, high-capacity batteries.

The technology is expected to become a core component of the next-generation battery industry, contributing to longer EV driving range and faster charging. Because it uses the CMC-SBR binder system already in industrial use, it is well suited for large-scale production. Minimizing solvent and drying steps is also expected to reduce manufacturing costs and cut carbon emissions.

"This technology represents a new approach that can overcome the limitations of existing PTFE-based dry electrode processes," Yoon said. "We expect it to find application in next-generation electric vehicle batteries, which simultaneously demand high energy density and fast-charging performance."

The findings were published in Energy Storage Materials, an international academic journal covering the energy field.