Radiolysis of Electrolytes in Batteries: A Quick and Efficient Screening Process for the Selection of Electrolyte-Additive Formulations

Understanding aging phenomena in batteries is crucial to the design of efficient, safe, and reliable energy storage devices as a part of the current green energy transition. Among the different aspects of a battery, the behavior of the electrolyte is a key parameter. Therefore, screening the aging characteristics of different electrolytes is of major interest. However, few screening studies exist because these are time-consuming and require the monitoring of numerous charge and discharge cycles. It has been demonstrated here that radiation chemistry, i.e., the interaction between ionizing radiation and matter, is a valuable tool to screen the behavior of various electrolytes within a few hours. Indeed, the rapid radiolysis of electrolytes leads to the production of the same gases as produced by electrochemical cycling (i.e., H₂ , CO₂ ), and the ranking of electrolytes by their H₂ production yields similar performance ratings to those reported in the literature. Therefore, this direct comparison of electrolytes alone, lasting a few hours without any manufacturing operations such as the fabrication of electrochemical cells, demonstrates that controlled irradiation makes it possible to predict battery cycling behavior. Additionally, mechanisms involved in the degradation processes of different electrolytes are proposed.