Electrochemical behavior of aluminum foil in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquids electrolytes

Aluminum (Al) foil is widely used as a current collector in lithium ion batteries, EDLCs and other electrochemical devices, and its electrochemical behavior in electrolytes has great effect on the cycle performances and safety of the electrochemical devices. In this work, corrosion behavior of Al foil in 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquids and its electrolytes containing LiTFSI as salt were studied using cyclic voltammogram method. It was found that a passive film was firmly formed on the surface of Al foil after the anodic polarization in BMI-BF_4 compared to those in EMI-BF_4 and PMI-BF_4. In addition, anodic polarization research showed that the passive film on Al surface in BMI-TFSI did not well exist. A good passive film formed on the surface of Al foil in BMI-BF_4 was not broken down until the potential was up to 94.58 V. Moreover, EDX and XPS analysis showed that F and O exist on the Al surface after the anodic polarization in BMI-BF_4, which ind-cated that a passive film like AlF3 and Al2O3 may be formed on its surface.