Chen Liu, Andrei Dolocan, Zehao Cui, and Arumugam Manthiram have made significant progress in improving the fast-charging capabilities of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which are crucial for devices like smartphones and electric vehicles. Their work, published in The Journal of the American Chemical Society, focuses on how the chemistry of the interface between the battery electrodes and electrolyte can be optimized to make charging faster and more efficient.
As a proof of concept, they employed a combination of time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) and focused ion beam (FIB), together with advanced statistical analyses, to reveal the three-dimensional (3D) morphology and chemical composition of electrode-electrolyte interphases (EEIs) in LIBs with unprecedented level of detail. The interphase chemistry characteristics were thoroughly examined and correlated with electrolyte compositions and enhanced fast-charging performance of LIBs. Texas Materials Institute’s (TMI’s) new ionTOF M6 TOF-SIMS instrument equipped with FIB capabilities was utilized to identify, locate, and relatively quantify the various degradation species composing the EEIs across various dimensions and scales, providing a comprehensive understanding of the EEI features.
They discovered that stable battery operation under fast-charging conditions requires the following:
1. On the cathode side, reducing surface reactivity rather than stabilizing the bulk integrity, and a chemically homogeneous distribution of cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) components passivating preferentially the active material particles.
2. On the anode (graphite) side, low amounts of electrolyte decomposition species in the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) rather than a homogeneous distribution of these species within the SEI, together with an inorganic-rich SEI that effectively protects the graphite particles, suppresses the accumulation of metallic lithium, and prevents the formation of lithium dendrites.
This study shows that an enhanced fast-charging performance can be achieved by tuning the interphase chemistry and architecture on both the cathode and anode sides. These findings are key to advancing fast-charging battery technology.
For more details, you can read the full study here: Multi-dimensional, Multi-scale Analysis of Interphase Chemistry for Enhanced Fast-Charging of Lithium-Ion Batteries with Ion Mass Spectrometry | Journal of the American Chemical Society
