Silicon is considered to be one of the most important high-energy density anode materials for next-generation lithium-ion batteries. A large number of experimental studies on silicon anode have achieved better results, and greatly promoted its practical application potentiality, but almost of them are only tested in metal lithium half batteries. There is still an unavoidable question for commercial applications: what is the performance of the full cell composed of a silicon anode and a manganese-based material cathode? In this paper, the growing solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) and deposited manganese ions of the silicon anode's surface of the spinel lithium manganese oxide LiMn2O4/silicon full cells are quantitatively studied during electrochemical cycling, and the SEI performances are tested by differential scanning calorimetry to find out the reason for the rapid decline of reversible capacity in the LiMn2O4/silicon system. The experimental results show that manganese ions can make SEI films rapidly grow on the silicon anode and make SEI films more brittle, which results in lower Coulombic efficiency and rapid decline in capacity of the silicon anode.
Keywords: Coulombic efficiency; full cell; lithium ion battery; quantification; solid electrolyte interphase.