Revealing the Electrochemical Kinetics of Electrolytes in Nanosized LiFePO4 Electrodes

Lithium-ion battery rate performance is ultimately limited by the electrolyte, yet the behaviors of electrolytes during high-rate (dis)charge remain elusive to electrochemical measurement. Herein, we develop and study a nanosized LiFePO4 model system in which the electrolyte completely controls the electrochemical kinetics of the porous electrode. Impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and rate performance testing prove that ion transport in the electrolyte is the sole rate-limiting process, even in thin electrodes. A novel pseudo-steady-state extrapolation (S3E) method for Tafel analysis shows that LiFePO4 obeys Butler-Volmer kinetics with a transfer coefficient of 3. The combination of these unexpectedly rapid interfacial kinetics and an activation barrier for phase transformation causes extreme reaction heterogeneity, which manifests as a moving reaction zone. Resistance versus capacity analysis enables direct measurement of electrolyte resistance growth during high-rate (dis)charge, revealing how the interaction between concentration polarization and a moving reaction zone controls electrolyte rate performance in LiFePO4 electrodes. This work elucidates the profound impacts of the electrolyte on electrochemical measurements in porous battery electrodes: when the active material is not rate limiting, it is impossible to directly measure the intrinsic kinetics of the active material, but conversely, it becomes possible to directly measure the kinetics of the electrolyte.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published on behalf of The Electrochemical Society by IOP Publishing Limited. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND,http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is not changed in any way and is properly cited

Automated summary

This study investigates the behavior of electrolytes in high-rate (dis)charge processes and reveals that ion transport in the electrolyte is the main rate-limiting process. The study also elucidates the control mechanism of electrolyte rate performance in LiFePO4 electrodes.