Effects of the Functional Group on the Lithium Ions Across the Port of Carbon Nanotube

Abstract

The mean axial velocity of lithium irons across the entrance of carbon nanotube VLi is an important factor for the charge-discharge performances of rechargeable Lithium battery. The molecular dynamics simulation method is adopted to evaluate the factors and their effects on VLi which include the diameter of carbon nanotube, functional group type on the port and the number of a given type of functional group. The statistical analysis of the calculation results shows that: In the selected carbon nanotubes of four different diameters, VLi will gradually rise with the increase of CNT diameter due to lithium irons migration resistance decreasing; as the port of CNT is successively modified to hydrogen (-H), hydroxyl (-OH), amino (-NH2) and carboxyl (-COOH), the corresponding migration resistance of lithium ions is enhanced resulting in the dropping of VLi; in comparison to the effect strength of four types of functional groups on VLi, -COOH shows strongest, -NH2 and -OH perform relatively weaker, and the effect difference between -NH2 and -OH is very small, -H displays weakest; When the number of a given non-hydrogen functional group on the port sequentially increases, it also shows a trend that lithium ion migration resistance gradually increases which makes VLi decreases in turn. The more influential the functional group, the greater the impact of functional group number changes on VLi. The results of this paper have some significance on the precise production of lithium-ion battery electrode materials, enhancing the overall battery cycle efficiency and charging speed.