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M. Antoniadou, C. Kanakaki, J. Kahr, E. Rosenberg:
"Characterizing volatile organic degradation products from the electrolyte of lithium ion batteries by GC/MS and GC/MS-FTIR";
Poster: 42nd International Symposium on Capillary Chromatography (42nd ISCC) and 15th GCxGC Symposium, Riva del Garda (Italy); 13.05.2018 - 18.05.2018.

Characterizing volatile organic degradation products from the electrolyte of lithium ion batteries by GC/MS and GC/MS-FTIR

Maria Antoniadou/a, Chrysoula Kanakaki/a, Jürgen Kahr/b, Erwin Rosenberg/a*

a Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics, Getreidemarkt 9/164 AC, A-1060 Vienna, Austria
b AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Center for Low-Emission Transport, Electric Drive Technologies, Giefinggasse 2, A-1210 Vienna, Austria

The omnipresence of lithium ion batteries (LIBs) in numerous applications such as mobile communication, consumer electronics, medical equipment, mobile and wireless devices and transportation has also increased our awareness of the potential risks of this technology [ ]. Under conditions of mechanical, electrical or thermal abuse, the organic electrolyte of LIBs may degrade and initiate a series of reactions, eventually leading to thermal runaway and catastrophic failure of the lithium ion battery, associated with fire and explosion hazard [ ].
The investigation of the volatile organic degradation products under thermal stress conditions, as well as under electrochemical cycling at different conditions may be indicative for the underlying decomposition processes and helps understanding which of the numerous concurrent reactions are dominant. To this aim, we have conducted both off-line and on-line experiments in which the volatile organic degradation products are analysed by GC/MS for the off-line experiments and by GC/MS combined with FTIR for the on-line experiments.
Results clearly demonstrate the region of thermal and electrochemical stability of an in house-constructed LIB which uses commercially available electrode materials and electrolyte (ethylene carbonate / dimethyl carbonate with LiPF6, 1 M) and the onset of electrolyte decomposition which is clearly seen by a drastic increase in the concentration of degradation products. The proposed analytical methodology has thus great diagnostic value, both in elucidating the (electro-)chemical degradation mechanisms of the organic electrolyte, as well as in the early detection of the onset of thermal runaway. Moreover, detailed analysis of the degradation products has indicated the formation of some potentially neurotoxic compounds whose occurrence was hitherto unknown [ ].

Acknowledgment
Financial support of this work by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) in the frame of projects "SiLithium" (Proj. Nr

[1] D. Ouyang, J. Liu, M. Chen, J. Wang, Appl. Sci. 7 (2017) 1314; doi:10.3390/app7121314
[2] A. Friesen, F. Horsthemke et al., J. Power Sources 334 (2016) 1.
[3] C. Kanakaki, PhD thesis, TU Vienna (2018).