READ ME File For 'Dataset for: LiFePO4 battery material for the production of lithium from brines: Effect of brine composition and benefits of dilution'

Dataset DOI: 10.5258/SOTON/D2022

ReadMe Author: Nuria Garcia-Araez, University of Southampton

This dataset supports the publication:
AUTHORS: Sara Pérez-Rodríguez, Samuel D.S. Fitch, Philip N. Bartlett, Nuria Garcia-Araez
TITLE: LiFePO4 battery material for the production of lithium from brines: Effect of brine composition and benefits of dilution
JOURNAL: ChemSusChem
PAPER DOI: 10.1002/cssc.202102182


This dataset contains:


The figures are as follows:

Figure 2. Charge/discharge profiles of LiFePO4 cycled against Li0.25FePO4 in 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution at C/10 (first 2 cycles, grey curves) and at 1C (subsequent 5 cycles, red curves).

Figure 3. (a) 1st and (b) 2nd cycle charge/discharge profile recorded at C/10 and (c) subsequent five cycles at 1C, for LiFePO4 cycled against Li0.25FePO4 in aqueous Li2SO4 solutions with different lithium molarities: 1 M (grey curves), 50 mM (red curves) and 5 mM (blue curves).

Figure 4. As in Figure 3 but with aqueous 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution (grey curves) and with 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution containing either 1 M NaCl (red curves), 1 M KCl (blue curves) or 1 M MgCl2 (green curves).

Figure 5. As in Figure 3 but with aqueous 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution (grey curves) and with the synthetic brines: Atacama (red curves), Olaroz (blue curves) and Central Altiplano (green curves). (d) Correlation of the first discharge specific capacity at 1C and the ratio of the lithium concentration and viscosity. The composition of the synthetic brines is shown in Table 1.

Figure 6. XRD patterns of the LiFePO4 electrodes after one charge/discharge cycle at C/10 in 0.5 M Li2SO4 and in the different brines. The diffractograms of pristine (i.e. uncycled) LiFePO4 and Li0.25FePO4 electrodes also shown for comparison. The vertical lines mark the positions of the characteristic peaks due to LiFePO4, showing that the electrodes cycled in 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution and in the different brines only show the peaks characteristic of LiFePO4. Differences in diffraction peak intensities are due to small changes in electrode alignment, and do not indicate changes in the crystallinity of LiFePO4 in the electrodes

Figure 7. (a) Capacity retention against cycle number for LiFePO4 electrodes cycled against Li0.25FePO4 at C/10 in aqueous 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution and synthetic brines. (b) Percentage of capacity retention at cycle 50 as a function of the brine viscosity. The composition of the synthetic brines is shown in table 1, and additional measurements were done with Central Altiplano brine diluted by three times with water (2 ml of water were added per ml of brine). 

Figure 8. (a) 1st, (b) 2nd and (c) 50th cycle charge/discharge profile for LiFePO4 electrodes cycled against Li0.25FePO4 at C/10 in aqueous 0.5 M Li2SO4 solution and synthetic brines, as in figure 6. The results obtained in the Central Altiplano brine show slightly less capacity than in figure 4, due to the higher cell-to-cell variability that occurred with this highly viscous brine, ascribable to the difficulty of optimal cell assembly.


Figure 9. As Figure 6, except that the electrodes were cycled for 50 charge/discharge cycles. In some of the diffractograms, the presence of diffraction peaks corresponding to NaCl salt precipitate is seen, which is due to the partial evaporation of the brine impregnated in the electrode after the cell disassembly.

Figure 10. Raman spectra of the LiFePO4 electrodes after 50 charge/discharge cycles at C/10 in 0.5 M Li2SO4 and in the different brines. The spectrum of the pristine (i.e. uncycled) LiFePO4 electrode is also shown for comparison


Date of data collection: 07/2018 to 01/2021

Information about geographic location of data collection: Southampton, UK


Licence: CC-BY

Related projects: "A highly versatile selective approach for lithium production" by the Royal Society (IC170232), EPSRC projects EP/N024303/1, EP/K00509X/1 and EP/K009877/1. MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033: Juan de la Cierva Incorporación research contract (IJC2019-041874-I).

Date that the file was created: December, 2021