Perspective on recent improvements in experiment and theory towards realizing lithium metal electrodes with liquid electrolytes.

Understanding the transport properties of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is a critical piece in the development of lithium ion batteries (LIB) with better performance. We studied the lithium ion diffusivity in the main components of the SEI found in LIB with silicon anodes and performed classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on lithium fluoride (LiF), lithium oxide (Li₂O) and lithium carbonate (Li₂CO₃) in order to provide insights and to calculate the diffusion coefficients of Li-ions at temperatures in the range of 250 K to 400 K, which is within the LIB operating temperature range. We find a slight increase in the diffusivity as the temperature increases and since diffusion is noticeable at high temperatures, Li-ion diffusion in the range of 1300 K to 1800 K was also studied and the diffusion mechanisms involved in each SEI compound were analyzed. We observed that the predominant mechanisms of Li-ion diffusion included vacancy assisted and knock-off diffusion in LiF, direct exchange in Li₂O, and vacancy and knock-off in Li₂CO₃. Moreover, we also evaluated the effect of applied electric fields in the diffusion of Li-ions at room temperature.

Wide-scale practical application of rechargeable lithium–metal batteries remains a significant challenge due to dendrite growth. To overcome this challenge, electrolytes must be designed to allow for the formation of protective solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layers on the highly reactive lithium–metal anode (LMA) surfaces. Recently, novel localized high-concentration electrolytes (LHCEs) were introduced as a potential solution to enable dendrite-free cycling of LMAs, by using an inert solvent to “dilute” the high concentration electrolytes. Ideally, the diluent itself does not dissolve the salt but is miscible with the solvent to form a localized high concentrated salt/solvent cluster surrounded by the diluent. However, detailed structure and potential surface reactions that may take place in LHCE environment are not yet clear. In this work, we investigated the reactivity of 1 M lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) in a mixture of dimethoxyethane (DME)/tris(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)orthoformate (TFEO) (1 : 3 by mol) electrolyte near a Li metal surface based on density functional theory and ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Selected liquid interfacial configurations were obtained from classical MD simulations. Our results indicate that when salt and TFEO molecules are close to each other and to the surface, fluoride anions resulting from the fast salt anion decomposition can trigger a cascade of reactions that lead to the decomposition of TFEO. However, if the Li cation is initially solvated by DME and the anion forming a complex, the stability of the anion increases significantly. The Li solvated structure is implied in the LHCE concept; however statistically the larger amount of TFEO molecules suggest also the first scenario leading to TFEO decomposition. Therefore, the broader implication of our simulations is that the defluorination of TFEO may contribute, together with the anion decomposition, to the observed rapid formation of a stable SEI on the surface of the lithium metal; consequently, favorably affecting the stability of LMAs during battery operation.