The Korea Institute of Materials Science and the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute have developed battery electrode technology that manufactures high-performance dry cathodes without using PTFE.

The Korea Institute of Materials Science announced on the 9th that a research team led by Dr. Ji-Hee Yoon of the Convergence and Composite Materials Research Division, in collaboration with a research team led by Dr. In-Sung Hwang of the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, has developed a "shape-controlled graphite granule-based dry electrode manufacturing technology." The research results were published online on April 21, 2026, in the energy journal *Energy Storage Materials*.

Dry electrodes are a manufacturing technology that reduces the use of organic solvents and drying processes during battery electrode production. As they can lower manufacturing costs and carbon emissions, they are being researched as a next-generation battery process for electric vehicles and energy storage systems (ESS).

Conventional dry electrode processes have often relied on PTFE as a binder to bond electrode materials. While PTFE is used to ensure bonding strength in dry processes, the need for alternative technologies has been raised due to potential performance degradation in the cathode environment and issues related to regulations on fluorine-based materials.

The research team applied the CMC-SBR binder used in commercial wet cathode processes to a dry process. A slurry mixed with graphite, a conductive material, and a binder was granulated using a spray drying process to redesign the existing plate-shaped graphite particles into a spherical structure.

This structure focused on ensuring an even pathway for lithium ion movement within the electrode. Through this, the research team mitigated the problem of degraded charge and discharge performance seen in thick electrodes.

Experimental results showed that the developed dry cathode exhibited improved rapid charging performance and long-term cycle characteristics compared to conventional slurry-based cathodes. Even under high energy density conditions, lithium-ion diffusion characteristics were improved, confirming the possibility of realizing high-capacity batteries based on thick electrodes.

Yoon Ji-hee, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Materials Science, explained that this technology is an approach that reduces the limitations of PTFE-based dry electrode processes and can be utilized in the electric vehicle battery sector, which requires high energy density and rapid charging performance.

This technology can utilize the CMC-SBR binder system currently used in the industry, making it applicable to mass production processes. The research team anticipates that this will contribute to the commercialization of eco-friendly dry electrode processes in the fields of electric vehicles, ESS, and next-generation high-energy-density batteries.