Solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation in Li-ion batteries is essential for good long-term performance of the cell. However, for electrodes exhibiting high volume expansion (like Si and Sn), continuous SEI formation can not only deplete electrolyte content but also increase cell impedance and hence mediocre performance. This is particularly detrimental in the case of thin-film electrodes where there is a minute amount of active materials loading. In the current work, defined poly(borosiloxane) (PBS) as an artificial polymeric SEI having self-healing, anion-trapping properties, and electron-deficient boron moiety is investigated. Studies on thin-film Si electrodes show excellent enhancement with polymeric coating in terms of cycling stability. These improvements are attributed to a combination of factors including the anion-trapping effect of tricoordinate boron, self-healing ability of PBS, and adherence to the electrode surface.
The volume of spent photovoltaic (PV) panels is expected to grow exponentially in future decades. Substantial material resources such as silver (Ag), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), silicon (Si), and glass can potentially be recovered from silicon-based PV panels. In this paper, we targeted the recovery of Cu and Ag from a cell sheet separated to a glass panel from a spent PV panel. The technical feasibility of a novel electrical dismantling method was experimentally studied. This method employed a pulsed power technology that releases high energy in a short time. It allowed a selective separation of the Cu/Ag wires from the sheet once per discharge in water. The experimental results indicated that 95.6% of the total Cu and 17.2% of the total Ag in the sample were successfully separated from the cell sheet using a 3.5-kJ capacitor bank circuit. Moreover, 3.66% of the total Si in the sample was contaminated by the separated Cu/Ag particles from the cell sheet, mainly by shockwaves generated by plasma expansion, and some of them formed a compound with Cu and Ag by eutectic melting, resulting in low liberation. At the lower energy of 3.5 kJ, eutectic melting of Cu and Ag with Si was more suppressed than 4.6 kJ, and 94.3% of Cu and 77.5% of Ag in the separated particles were liberated, which would be acceptable for further wet gravity and/or shape separation of Cu and Ag.
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