In order to increase the performance and safety of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), the introduction of water during production, in particular, poses a major challenge. Excessive residual moisture in LIB cells can lead to drastically reduced electrochemical performance and represents a high safety risk. Therefore, the cell components must be post-dried prior to cell assembly. Although post-drying is energy-intensive and has a major impact on the product quality, it is still not well-researched and understood in detail. Therefore, the work presented here aims at better understanding and optimizing the vacuum post-drying process of LIB electrodes, as well as investigating the water sorption behavior of the electrodes. For better process understanding, the process technology must be linked with the microscopic electrode properties through the macroscopic electrode structure. The investigations carried out in this work are therefore based on the concept of process-structure-property relationships. The results show that although high post-drying intensities achieve low residual moisture contents on the one hand, they can damage the microstructure of the electrodes and their mechanical, electrical and electrochemical functional properties on the other hand. The electrochemical performance is therefore not only influenced by the residual moisture content, but also significantly by the post-drying intensity. Based on the identified process-structure-property relationships, a general understanding of the vacuum post-drying of whole electrode coils is developed. A comparatively moderate II-phase vacuum post-drying procedure is designed and successfully applied in practice. For a better understanding of the sorption behavior of LIB electrodes, the influence of the microstructure, the active material and the dew point during cell assembly on water sorption is investigated, and process-structure(-property) relationships are derived. The process-structure(-property) relationships generated in this work, with regard to post-drying and the water sorption behavior of LIBs, contribute significantly to a better process understanding. They form the basis for the knowledge-based design of the post-drying process and the moisture management throughout the entire process chain, and thus make a significant contribution to saving energy and costs and to increasing the product quality and safety of LIBs.weiterlesen