Methods pressure control apparatus for lithium metal battery

TL;DR

This paper introduces a precise, reusable pressure control apparatus for lithium metal batteries, enabling detailed study of how pressure influences lithium plating and stripping, which is crucial for improving battery cycle life.

Contribution

It presents a novel, high-precision pressure control setup with reusable components for lithium metal batteries, addressing variability issues in pressure application.

Findings

Pressure positively influences lithium plating/stripping.

The apparatus enables consistent pressure application across tests.

Study results inform optimal pressure ranges for battery performance.

Abstract

Lithium (Li) metal anodes are essential for developing next-generation high-energy-density batteries. However, Li dendrite/whisker formation caused short-circuiting issue and short cycle life have prevented lithium metal from being viably used in rechargeable batteries. Numerous works have been done to study how to regulate the Li growth in electrochemical cycling by using external stacking forces. While it is widely agreed that stack pressure positively affects the lithium plating/stripping process, the optimized pressure range provided by different works varies greatly because of the difference in the pressure control setup. In this work, a pressure control apparatus is designed for Li metal batteries with liquid and solid-state electrolytes (SSE). With considerations of minimizing cell to cell variation, a reusable split cell and pressure load cell are made for testing electrochemical cells with high precision pressure control. The capability of the designed setup is demonstrated by studying the pressure effect on the Li plating/stripping process.