Comparison of Detection Limits and Purity Analysis of Lithium Carbonate Powders Between ICP-OES, ICP-MS and ICP-MSMS Analysis Techniques

Description:
Lithium (Li) plays an important role in everyday life and can be found around us in nearly every aspect of modern living. One of the most common uses of lithium is in batteries. Lithium batteries can be found in cell phones, computers, electric vehicles, and every portable electronic device. For decades, consumers have been valuing longer battery lives and faster charging capabilities, and the advancements in lithium battery technology are a reflection of this. In addition, global trends in electrification, renewable energy, and the adoption of electric vehicles are creating a demand for more lithium-based materials with higher quality control (QC) requirements.

With the demand for higher-capacity batteries, current battery production technology must improve, requiring better control of the raw materials used and their physical properties. For example, lithium salts are commonly refined from brine, a highly concentrated solution of NaCl. Sodium must be removed from the final product during the extraction process since excess sodium can lead to overheating in the battery end products. Therefore, the capability to identify the presence of impurities in lithium battery materials is critical for manufacturers and suppliers to ensure that the final battery performance is not compromised.

Here, we analyze two Li2CO3 powders with the Avio® 550 Max ICP-OES, NexION® 2000 ICP-MS, and NexION 5000 Multi-Quadrupole ICP-MS to show that as the impurity of the powder is increased, it is necessary to use a more sensitive instrument to account for all possible impurities.

Speaker: Chady Stephan - PerkinElmer Inc
Chady Stephan holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Université de Montréal. He joined PerkinElmer as an Inorganic Field Application Scientist. He since then occupied various roles inside of the organization. As a global manager for nanotechnology applications he managed the development of various nanotechnology applications that focuses on measurement techniques for nano-object. As a Senior Manager – industrial applications, he led a multifunctional team composed of marketing, technical marketing, application scientist and strategist focusing on delivering complete end market solutions. As a product manager – Inorganic Solutions, he focused on developing hardware and software solutions that serves PerkinElmer inorganic platforms. He is currently leading the applied markets team focusing on core capabilities and value proposition within focused end markets. He is a thought leader in elemental analysis with over 30 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.