Advanced Low‐Flammable Electrolytes for Stable Operation of High‐Voltage Lithium‐Ion Batteries
Hao Jia, Yaobin Xu, Xianhui Zhang, Sarah Burton, Peiyuan Gao, Bethany E. Matthews, Mark Engelhard, Kee Sung Han, Lirong Zhong, Chongmin Wang, Wu Xu
Abstract
Abstract Despite being an effective flame retardant, trimethyl phosphate (TMP a ) is generally considered as an unqualified solvent for fabricating electrolytes used in graphite (Gr)‐based lithium‐ion batteries as it readily leads to Gr exfoliation and cell failure. In this work, by adopting the unique solvation structure of localized high‐concentration electrolyte (LHCE) to TMP a and tuning the composition of the solvation sheaths via electrolyte additives, excellent electrochemical performance can be achieved with TMP a ‐based electrolytes in Gr∥LiNi 0.8 Mn 0.1 Co 0.1 O 2 cells. After 500 charge/discharge cycles within the voltage range of 2.5–4.4 V, the batteries containing the TMP a ‐based LHCE with a proper additive can achieve a capacity retention of 85.4 %, being significantly higher than cells using a LiPF 6 ‐organocarbonates baseline electrolyte (75.2 %). Meanwhile, due to the flame retarding effect of TMP a , TMP a ‐based LHCEs exhibit significantly reduced flammability compared with the conventional LiPF 6 ‐organocarbonates electrolyte.