Lithium ion batteries with an inorganic separator offer improved safety and enhanced reliability. The free-standing inorganic separators recently studied for lithium ion batteries are brittle and expensive. To address these issues, this paper reports the synthesis of a new and stable electrode-supported separator using a low-cost ceramic powder. Thin and porous alpha-Al2O3 separator films of thicknesses down to 40 gm were coated on Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) electrode by blade-coating a slurry of-Al2O3,a water and a small amount of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The performance of the LTO/Li cells with coated alpha-Al2O3 separator improves with decreasing PVA content. Cells with coated alpha-Al2O3 separator containing 0.4wt% PVA exhibit similar discharge capacity but better rate capability than those with commercial polypropylene (PP) or thick sintered alpha-Al2O3 separator. The coated alpha-Al2O3 separator does not react with LTO even after many charge/discharge cycles. Fabrication of the electrode-supported alpha-Al2O3 separator is scalable and costeffective, offering high potential for practical application in industrial lithium ion battery manufacturing. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.