Improved low-temperature performance of lithium-ion cells with quaternary carbonate-based electrolytes

in order to enable future missions involving the exploration of the surface of Mars with Landers, and Rovers, NASA desires long life, high energy density rechargeable batteries which can operate well at very low temperature (down to -40 degreesC). Lithium-ion technology has been identified as being the most promising chemistry, due to high gravimetric and volumetric energy densities, as well as, long life characteristics. However, the state-of-art (SOA) technology is not sufficient to meet the needs of many applications that require excellent low-temperature capabilities. To further improve this technology, work at JPL has been focused upon developing electrolytes that result in lithium-ion cells with wider temperature ranges of operation. These efforts have led to the identification of a number of ternary and quaternary, all carbonate-based electrolytes that have been demonstrated to result in improved low-temperature performance in experimental three-electrode MCMB-carbon/LiNi0.8Co0.2O2 cells. A number of electrochemical characterization techniques were performed on these cells (i.e. Tafel polarization measurements, linear polarization measurements, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)) to further enhance our understanding of the performance limitations at low temperature. The most promising electrolyte formulations, namely 1.0 M LiPF6 EC + DEC + DMC + EMC (1: 1: 1:2 v/v) and 1.0 M LiPF6 EC + DEC + DMC + EMC (1:1:1:3 v/v), were incorporated into SAFT prototype DD-size (9 Ah) lithium-ion cells for evaluation. A number of electrical tests were performed on these cells, including rate characterization as a function of temperature, cycle life characterization at different temperatures, as well as, many mission specific characterization tests to determine their viability to enable future missions to Mars. Excellent performance was observed with the prototype DD-size cells over a wide temperature range (-50 to 40 degreesC), with high specific energy being delivered at very low temperatures (i.e. over 95 Wh/kg being delivered at -40 degreesC using a C/10 discharge rate). (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.