Detection of Copper Deposition on Anodes of Over‐Discharged Lithium Ion Cells by GD‐OES Depth Profiling

Abstract

A method based on glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GD-OES) depth profiling is developed to detect copper deposition on graphite electrodes for the first time. Commercial 18650 cells with graphite anodes were subject to Cu dissolution by over-discharge to 0 V. On a first approach, the depth profiles for Cu show significant differences for over-discharged cells compared to a baseline graphite electrode from cells discharged to the end-of-discharge voltage. An accumulation of Cu is found on the anode surface by GD-OES, which is consistent with SEM and EDX. The trend of the total Cu amount is compared with ICP-OES measurements.

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