• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.290-298
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• 2021

A purification process was performed for the application of natural graphite as an anode material. The influence of the structural change and impurity content of graphite according to the process on the anode electrochemical characteristics was investigated. Natural graphite was chemically/physically purified by acid-treatment which used different amounts of solution of ammonium fluoride/sulfuric acid in the same ratio and thermal treatment used different temperatures (800~2500 ℃). Acid-treatment had limitation to remove impurities, and identified that all impurity contents was removed except some traces of atom such as Si by after progressed thermal-treatment until 2500 ℃. The anode materials characteristic of graphite treated by purification process was improved, and changes in the structure and impurity contents affected dominantly the capacity, rate property and initial Coulombic efficiency. Consequently, the complex purification process improved the graphite structure and also the performance of lithium ion battery by controlling the excessive formation of solid electrolyte interphase and expanding Li⁺ insertion space originated from the effective removal of impurities.