First-Principles Study on the Adsorption and Dissociation of Impurities on Copper Current Collector in Electrolyte for Lithium-Ion Batteries

The copper current collector is an important component for lithium-ion batteries and its stability in electrolyte impacts their performance. The decomposition of LiPF6 in the electrolyte of lithium-ion batteries produces the reactive PF6, which reacts with the residual water and generates HF. In this paper, the adsorption and dissociation of H2O, HF, and PF5 on the Cu(111) surface were studied using a first-principles method based on the density functional theory. The stable configurations of HF, H2O, and PF5 adsorbed on Cu(111) and the geometric parameters of the admolecules were confirmed after structure optimization. The results showed that PF5 can promote the dissociation reaction of HF. Meanwhile, PF5 also promoted the physical adsorption of H2O on the Cu(111) surface. The CuF2 molecule was identified by determining the bond length and the bond angle of the reaction product. The energy barriers of HF dissociation on clean and O-atom-preadsorbed Cu(111) surfaces revealed that the preadsorbed O atom can promote the dissociation of HF significantly.