Conductive paste is a paste formed by uniformly dispersing a conductive agent in a solvent, while Carbon conductive paste is a paste formed by dispersing carbon nanotubes as a conductive agent in a dispersing solvent. According to general process experience, the amount of conductive agent added is generally 1%-3% of the weight of the positive or negative electrode. Carbon nanotubes have good conductivity and the amount added is about 1.5%.
① Excellent mechanical properties
The C-C in carbon nanotubes forms a bond in sp2 hybridization, which is one of the strongest chemical bonds reported so far. Therefore, an ideal single carbon nanotube with a complete structure has excellent mechanical properties.
② Good thermal properties
Due to the conduction effect of the sp2 structure on phonons, the thermal conductivity of single-walled carbon nanotubes can be as high as 6600W·(m·K)-1, and the thermal conductivity at room temperature is more than 3 times that of the best known diamond with thermal conductivity. Generally speaking, the thermal conductivity of a single carbon nanotube is relatively high. The earliest measured thermal conductivity of a single multi-walled carbon nanotube was 3000W·(m·K)-1.
③Excellent hydrogen storage performance
The pore structure of carbon nanotubes is regular and rich, and these pore structures can provide a large number of binding sites for the adsorption of gas molecules.
④Excellent electrical properties
Due to the different helicity of carbon nanotubes, their conductivity and band structure are different. Carbon nanotubes sometimes show the properties of semiconductors and sometimes show the properties of metals. Due to the sp2 hybridization of C-C bonds, the electron movement speed on the surface of carbon nanotubes is close to 1/300 of the speed of light, and its electron mobility reaches 20000cm2·(V·s)-1. By controlling the structure of carbon nanotubes, the migration speed of its electrons can be further regulated. Carbon nanotubes can also interact with electromagnetic waves to produce absorption effects. This determines its advantages as field emission materials, electromagnetic absorption materials, and lithium battery conductive agents.
Carbon conductive paste
The excellent conductivity and large length of carbon nanotubes determine that they are very suitable for use as conductive agents for lithium ion electrode materials. Since carbon nanotubes have good electrical conductivity on the one hand and are nano-scale one-dimensional materials in structure, their aspect ratio is generally above 103, making it easier for them to overlap and form a conductive network. It is expected that electrodes with good performance can be obtained at a lower addition amount. The effect of using carbon nanotubes as a conductive agent is significantly better than that of carbon black.
At present, the industrial application of adding carbon nanotubes as a conductive agent for lithium-ion batteries to improve battery performance has become the main industrialization direction in the battery field in China and Japan; the application of carbon nanotubes in batteries accounts for more than half of its output and is growing rapidly, becoming one of the most important applications of carbon nanotubes.