Unlocking the solid electrolyte interface components of lithium batteries to help build a new battery technology

During the battery charging process, an electrochemical reaction of hydrogen fluoride is produced, which converts from an electrolyte to lithium fluoride in a solid state and produces hydrogen. Such reactions are highly dependent on electrode materials such as graphite, graphene, and metals, which also proves the importance of battery catalysts.

Although lithium-ion batteries are the mainstream of energy storage today, the molecular and atomic basic science of charge and discharge is still a mystery.

According to the study of the Department of Energy Argon National Laboratory in NatureCatalysis, the research team has achieved a breakthrough in the chemical composition of the solid electrolyte interface between the electrode and the liquid electrolyte. This will help improve the team's ability to predict battery life, which is crucial for electric-vehicle manufacturers, said Dusan Strmcnik, a chemical engineer at the Argonne National Laboratory's Materials Science Department(MSD).

Scientists have long been working to crack the SEI of lithium-ion batteries, but only know that the formation of SEI will form a SEI, a thin film of a thousandths of a millimeter is produced on the graphite electrode, and the film can protect the interface from harmful reactions while allowing lithium ions. There is a shuttle between the electrode and the electrolyte, so a good performance SEI is necessary for a lithium ion battery. Strmcnik pointed out that battery efficiency and longevity depend on SEI quality. If scientists can find out their chemical and independent composition rules, they can improve battery efficiency through SEI.

Therefore, the Argonne National Laboratory formed an international research team with the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and the BMW Group, and successfully solved lithium fluoride, a common chemical substance of lithium ion battery SEI.

Experiments and calculations indicate that hydrogen fluoride electrochemical reactions are produced during battery charging, and lithium fluoride is converted from electrolyte to solid state and hydrogen is produced. Such reactions rely heavily on electrode materials such as graphite, graphene, and metals., prove the importance of battery catalysts.

The team also developed a new method for detecting hydrogen fluoride concentrations. Since hydrogen fluoride is a harmful substance formed by moisture and lithium salt(LiPF6), this detection method is key to SEI's future scientific research. Researcher NenadMarkovic said that the study will be tested at the BMW Battery Research Center in the future. The next step in the study is to design a new lithium-ion battery technology that will open up another road for lithium-ion batteries today.

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