While used in minor proportion respect to other components in cathode formulations, binders play a crucial role in lithium batteries cathode. This is particularly true in Li-O₂ batteries which represent a very harsh environment mainly because of the formation, upon cycling, of very aggressive superoxide radicals. In such batteries, the use of catalyst in the cathode formulation is quite usual to help oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction (ORR and OER) to proceed rapidly and reversibly. However, the slightest binder degradation upon cycling can hinder the catalyst effects dramatically, modifying them to act on other reactions associated with the generated side-products, thus deteriorating cell performances and preventing researchers from drawing the right conclusions about catalytic properties of new materials. In this work, the influence of different catalysts in the degradation of the PVDF binder, on the performance of Li-O₂ batteries, was investigated. The results obtained were compared with the ones of cathodes prepared with the same catalysts but Li-Nafion binder instead (already reported as stable), to further demonstrate that the choice of binder must be strongly linked to the nature of the catalyst. The catalysts employed for this study were α-MnO₂, and commercial Co₃O₄, and Co phthalocyanines (CoPc).

尽管相对于正极配方中的其他组分使用的比例很小，但粘结剂在锂电池正极中起着至关重要的作用。在Li-O _2中尤其如此代表非常恶劣的环境的电池，主要是因为在循环时会形成非常侵蚀性的超氧自由基。在这样的电池中，在阴极配方中使用催化剂是很常见的，以帮助氧还原反应和氧释放反应（ORR和OER）快速而可逆地进行。但是，循环时粘合剂降解最小会极大地阻碍催化剂的作用，使其变质以使其作用于与所产生的副产物相关的其他反应，从而降低电池性能，并阻止研究人员得出有关新材料催化性能的正确结论。在这项工作中，不同催化剂对PVDF粘合剂降解的影响对Li-O ₂的性能电池，进行了调查。将获得的结果与使用相同催化剂但使用Li-Nafion粘合剂制备的阴极（已报道为稳定）进行了比较，以进一步证明粘合剂的选择必须与催化剂的性质密切相关。对于本研究中所用的催化剂是α-MnO的₂，以及商业合作₃ Ò ₄和Co酞菁（酞菁钴）。