Electrochemical behavior of pure graphite studied with a powder microelectrode

In this work, cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques have been used to study the lithiation/delithiation of graphite using powder microelectrode in a 1.2 M LiPF6 in EC:EMC electrolyte. The advantage of using the powder microelectrode is the possibility to easily study graphite without any additive and determine electrochemical characteristics of Li-insertion. The use of cyclic voltammetry at very low scan rates allows to estimate the diffusion coefficient of lithium inside graphite. The exchange current density of graphite for several state of charge (SoC) has also been determined by EIS measurements. Moreover, the powder microelectrode is a useful tool to study the formation of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) on graphite either by cyclic voltammetry or EIS.