The electrolyte additive fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC) is known to significantly improve the lifetime of Li-ion batteries with silicon anodes. In this work, we show that FEC can indeed improve the lifetime of silicon-carbon composite anodes but is continuously consumed during electrochemical cycling. By the use of 19 F-NMR spectroscopy and charge/discharge cycling we demonstrate that FEC is only capable to stabilize the cell performance as long as FEC is still remaining in the cell. Its total consumption causes a significant increase of the cell polarization leading to a rapid capacity drop. We show with On-line Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry (OEMS) that the presence of FEC in the electrolyte prohibits the reduction of other electrolyte components almost entirely. Consequently, the cumulative irreversible capacity until the rapid capacity drop correlates linearly with the specific amount of FEC (in units of μmol FEC /mg electrode ) in the cell. The latter quantity therefore determines the lifetime of silicon anodes rather than the concentration of FEC in the electrolyte. By correlating the cumulative irreversible capacity and the specific amount of FEC in the cell, we present an easy tool to predict how much cumulative irreversible capacity can be tolerated until all FEC will be consumed in either half-cells or full-cells. We further demonstrate that four electrons are consumed for the reduction of one FEC molecule and that one carbon dioxide molecule is released for every FEC molecule that is reduced. Using all information from this study and combining it with previous reports in literature, a new reductive decomposition mechanism for FEC is proposed yielding CO 2 , LiF, In the emerging market of electric vehicles (EVs), the development of batteries with higher energy density and improved cycle-life is essential.1 However, their penetration of the mass market significantly depends on cost and the available driving range.2 The US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) defined the target value of 235 Wh/kg (at a C/3 rate) on a battery level until 2020.3 As outlined in the recent review by Andre et al., 4 reaching this goal requires an increase of the energy density of today's batteries by a factor of roughly 2 to 2.5 and can only be achieved by the development and integration of novel anode and cathode active materials. A critical element to reach this goal is the implementation of anode active materials with much higher specific capacity than currently used graphite anodes (372 mAh/g 1,5,6 ), with silicon being considered as the most likely next generation anode material due to its high natural abundance and very high theoretical specific capacity of roughly 3600 mAh/g (corresponding to the Li 15 Si 4 phase 7 ). The alloying of silicon with lithium is accompanied by large structural changes, resulting in a volume increase by 310% upon full lithiation.5,7-11 These huge volumetric changes upon lithium insertion and extraction are responsible for the generally shorter cycle-life of silicon electrode materials comp...

The instability of currently used electrolyte solutions and of the carbon support during charge-discharge in non-aqueous lithium-oxygen cells can lead to discharge products other than the desired Li2O2, such as Li2CO3, which is believed to reduce cycle-life. Similarly, discharge in an O2 atmosphere which contains H2O and CO2 impurities would lead to LiOH and Li2CO3 discharge products. In this work we therefore investigate the rechargeability of model cathodes pre-filled with four possible Li-air cell discharge products, namely Li2O2, Li2CO3, LiOH, and Li2O. Using Online Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry (OEMS), we determined the charge voltages and the gases evolved upon charge of pre-filled electrodes, thus determining the reversibility of the formation/electrooxidation reactions. We show that Li2O2 is the only reversible discharge product in ether-based electrolyte solutions, and that the formation of Li2CO3, LiOH, or Li2O is either irreversible and/or reacts with the electrolyte solution or the carbon during its oxidation.

In this work we present a novel on-line electrochemical mass spectrometer design, which enables quantitative gas evolution analysis with a sealed battery design, applied to the study of the charging processes in a Li-O2 battery. Successive charge/discharge cycles were performed using Vulcan-carbon based positive electrodes in electrolytes composed of 0.2 M LiTFSI and two different solvents: i) propylene carbonate (PC), and, ii) bis(2-methoxyethyl) ether (diglyme). Results on the PC based electrolyte reveal a strong potential dependence of the evolved gaseous products which is maintained throughout subsequent cycles, consisting predominantly of O2 below 3.7 V and of predominantly CO2 above 3.7 V. The observed capacity fading is most likely caused by the gradual accumulation of discharge products which can only be oxidized at high anodic potentials. With diglyme electrolyte, the predominant gas during charging is O2. However, while the number of electrons/O2 closely corresponds to the oxidation of Li2O2 at the beginning of each charging cycle (2 e−/O2), it increases with potential and with the number of cycles, suggesting the gradual formation of other oxygen-containing discharge products which can only be oxidized at high potential with the parallel formation of CO2.

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A novel lithium-oxygen battery exploiting PYR14TFSI-LiTFSI as ionic liquid-based electrolyte medium is reported. The Li/PYR14TFSI-LiTFSI/O2 battery was fully characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, capacity-limited cycling, field emission scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results of this extensive study demonstrate that this new Li/O2 cell is characterized by a stable electrode-electrolyte interface and a highly reversible charge-discharge cycling behavior. Most remarkably, the charge process (oxygen oxidation reaction) is characterized by a very low overvoltage, enhancing the energy efficiency to 82%, thus, addressing one of the most critical issues preventing the practical application of lithium-oxygen batteries.