Lithium-ion battery
(LIB) performance can be significantly affected
by the nature of the complex electrode microstructure. The carbon
binder domain (CBD) present in almost all LIB electrodes is used to
enhance mechanical stability and facilitate electronic conduction,
and understanding the CBD phase microstructure and how it affects
the complex coupled transport processes is crucial to LIB performance
optimization. In this work, the influence of microporosity in the
CBD phase has been studied in detail for the first time, enabling
insight into the relationships between the CBD microstructure and
the battery performance. To investigate the effect of the CBD pore
size distributions, a random field method is used to generate in silico
a multiple-phase electrode structure, including bimodal pore size
distributions seen in practice and microporous CBD with a tunable
pore size and variable transport properties. The distribution of macropores
and the microporous CBD phase substantially affected simulated battery
performance, where battery specific capacity improved as the microporosity
of the CBD phase increased.