Electrochemical Oscillation during the Galvanostatic Charging of Li4Ti5O12 in Li-Ion Batteries

Abstract

The electrochemical signals are very important to analyze and regulate the electrochemical systems, and the electrochemical oscillation is a newly discovered electrochemical signal in Li-ion batteries (LIBs), including the voltage and current oscillations. In this work, the Li4Ti5O12 was prepared using a home-made spray-drying instrument and high-temperature sintering, and its electrochemical oscillation was studied in LIBs. The electrochemical oscillation arose when the as-prepared Li4Ti5O12 precursor was sintered in a powder (not pellet) form, and it became stronger by reducing the lithium content in Li4Ti5O12. There are two types of electrochemical oscillation as a single-period oscillation or a double-period oscillation, and they can be transformed through varying the operating temperature, the current rate, and the conductive agent ratio, which might be owing to the electrochemical kinetics of Li4Ti5O12 electrodes. Combining the sintered forms and the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results, whether there is some fresh surface (formed by grinding the sintered pellet) becomes a typical difference between the powder-sintered and pellet-sintered Li4Ti5O12, which would affect the nucleation step and the reaction kinetics, and we proposed a possible reaction process of the electrochemical oscillation during the galvanostatic charging process of Li4Ti5O12 in LIBs.