Thermal Behavior of LixCoO2 Cathode and Disruption of Solid Electrolyte Interphase Film

Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and ion chromatography(IC) were employed to analyze the thermal behavior of $Li_xCoO_2$ cathode material of lithium ion battery. The mass loss peaks appearing between 60 and 125 ${^{\circ}C}$ in TGA and the exothermic peaks with 4.9 and 7.0 J/g in DSC around 75 and 85 ${^{\circ}C}$ for the $Li_xCoO_2$ cathodes of 4.20 and 4.35 V cells are explained based on disruption of solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) film. Low temperature induced HF formation through weak interaction between organic electrolyte and LiF is supposed to cause carbonate film disruption reaction, $Li_2CO_3\;+\;2HF{\rightarrow}\;2LiF\;+\;CO_2\;+\;H_2O$. The different spectral DSC/TGA pattern for the cathode of 4.5 V cell has also been explained. Presence of ionic carbonate in the cathode has been identified by ion chromatography and LiF reported by early researchers has been used for explaining the film SEI disruption process. The absence of mass loss peak for the cathode washed with dimethyl carbonate (DMC) implies ionic nature of the film. The thermal behavior above 150 ${^{\circ}C}$ has also been analyzed and presented.