Interphase formation with carboxylic acids as slurry additives for Si electrodes in Li-ion batteries. Part 1: performance and gas evolution

Abstract

Rendering the solid electrolyte interphase and the inter-particle connections more resilient to volume changes of the active material is a key challenge for silicon electrodes. The slurry preparation in a buffered aqueous solution offers a strategy to increase the cycle life and capacity retention of silicon electrodes considerably. So far, studies have mostly been focused on a citrate buffer at pH = 3, and therefore, in this study a series of carboxylic acids is examined as potential buffers for slurry preparation in order to assess which chemical and physical properties of carboxylic acids are decisive for maximizing the capacity retention for Si as active material. In addition, the cycling stability of buffer-containing electrodes was tested in dependence of the buffer content. The results were complemented by analysis of the gas evolution using online electrochemical mass spectrometry in order to understand the SEI layer formation in presence of carboxylic acids and effect of high proton concentration.