Processing of Al-doped ZnO protective thin films on aluminum current collectors for lithium ion batteries

Publication date: Available online 26 October 2016
Source:Thin Solid Films
Author(s): Georg Teucher, Tim Van Gestel, Manuel Krott, Hans-Gregor Gehrke, Rüdiger-A. Eichel, Sven Uhlenbruck
In this work, aluminum current collectors for Li-ion batteries were coated with protection layers made of Al-doped ZnO (ZnO:Al) to prevent the corrosion of aluminum caused by bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide (TFSI⁻) at 5V. These thin films of ~100nm thickness were prepared with a facile and scalable sol-gel coating process with subsequent heat treatment by rapid thermal processing (RTP) at 500°C. The ZnO:Al films exhibited the usual hexagonal phase, a homogeneous morphology and a sufficient electronic conductivity. In electrochemical testing, chronoamperometry demonstrated that the protection layer reduces the corrosion of the aluminum current collector 120 times compared with conventional unprotected aluminum.