Robust 15-Minute Analysis to Help Lithium-Ion Battery Development

Thermo Fisher Scientific has developed an accurate and reproducible ion chromatography (IC) method that uses suppressed conductivity detection to determine manganese in the simulated electrolyte of a lithium/lithium manganese oxide battery.

Application Note (AN) 1053: Determination of Dissolved Manganese in Lithium/Manganese Oxide Battery Electrolyte demonstrates that this approach requires only 15 min per analysis with a simple isocratic separation using a methane sulfonic acid eluent produced by an eluent generator to preclude the labor and potential error associated with eluent preparation.

Although manganese-based lithium-ion batteries offer key environmental, safety, and cost advantages, they have a shorter lifetime than other types of lithium-ion batteries, due in part to the dissolution of manganese from the cathode into the electrolyte.

The AN 1053 study is designed to help battery manufacturers understand and improve their products.

The combination of a Reagent-Free™ IC (RFIC™) system and a quality IC column set yields a method that is sensitive, accurate, reproducible, and easy to execute, requiring only the addition of deionized water to the RFIC system.