Nanoscale structural changes pinpoint lithium-ion battery degradation
In two recent Nature Communications papers, scientists from several U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories – Lawrence Berkeley, Brookhaven, SLAC, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – collaborated to map these crucial billionths-of-a-meter dynamics and lay the foundation for better batteries.
“Armed with a precise map of the materials’ erosion, we can plan new ways to break the patterns and improve performance,” said Huolin Xin, a materials scientist at Brookhaven Lab’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN).
“We discovered surprising and never-before-seen evolution and degradation patterns in two key battery materials. Contrary to large-scale observation, the lithium-ion reactions actually erode the materials non-uniformly, seizing upon intrinsic vulnerabilities in atomic structure in the same way that rust creeps unevenly across stainless steel.”
The scientists used electron tomography techniques to create a 3D animation of the nickel-oxide nanosheet transformations during the lithium-ion battery charging process.
Xin used world-leading electron microscopy techniques in both studies to directly visualize the nanoscale chemical transformations of battery components during each step of the charge-discharge process. In an elegant and ingenious setup, the collaborations separately explored a nickel-oxide anode and a lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide cathode – both notable for high capacity and cyclability – by placing samples inside common coin-cell batteries running under different voltages.
In the experiments, lithium ions travelled through an electrolyte solution, moving into an anode when charging and a cathode when discharging. The processes were regulated by electrons in the electrical circuit, but the ions’ journeys – and the battery structures – subtly changed each time.
For the nickel-oxide anode, researchers submerged the batteries in a liquid organic electrolyte and closely controlled the charging rates. They stopped at predetermined intervals to extract and analyze the anode. Xin and his collaborators rotated 20-nanometer-thick sheets of the post-reaction material inside a carefully calibrated transmission electron microscope (TEM) grid at CFN to catch the contours from every angle – a process called electron tomography.
To see the way the lithium-ions reacted with the nickel oxide, the scientists used a suite of custom-written software to digitally reconstruct the three-dimensional nanostructures with single-nanometer resolution. Surprisingly, the reactions sprang up at isolated spatial points rather than sweeping evenly across the surface.
“Consider the way snowflakes only form around tiny particles or bits of dirt in the air,” Xin said. “Without an irregularity to glom onto, the crystals cannot take shape. Our nickel oxide anode only transforms into metallic nickel through nanoscale inhomogeneities or defects in the surface structure, a bit like chinks in the anode’s armor.”
The electron microscopy provided a piece of the larger puzzle assembled in concert with Berkeley Lab materials scientists and soft x-ray spectroscopy experiments conducted at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL). The combined data covered the reactions on the nano-, meso-, and microscales.
In the other study, scientists sought the voltage sweet-spot for the high-performing lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide (NMC) cathode: How much power can be stored, at what intensity, and across how many cycles?
The answers hinged on intrinsic material qualities and the structural degradation caused by cycles at 4.7 volts and 4.3 volts, as measured against a lithium metal standard.
As revealed through another series of coin-cell battery tests, 4.7 volts caused rapid decomposition of the electrolytes and poor cycling – the higher power comes at a price. A 4.3-volt battery, however, offered a much longer cycling lifetime at the cost of lower storage and more frequent recharges.
In the experimental coin cell setup, a carbon supported transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grid loaded with a small amount of the nickel-oxide material was pressed against the bulk anode and submerged in the same electrolyte environment.
In both cases, the chemical evolution exhibited sprawling surface asymmetries, though not without profound patterns.
“As the lithium ions race through the reaction layers, they cause clumping crystallization – a kind of rock-salt matrix builds up over time and begins limiting performance,” Xin said. “We found that these structures tended to form along the lithium-ion reaction channels, which we directly visualized under the TEM. The effect was even more pronounced at higher voltages, explaining the more rapid deterioration.”
Identifying the crystal-laden reaction pathways hints at a way forward in battery design.
“It may be possible to use atomic deposition to coat the NMC cathodes with elements that resist crystallization, creating nanoscale boundaries within the micron-sized powders needed at the cutting-edge of industry,” Xin said.
The TEM measurements revealed the atomic structures while electron energy loss spectroscopy helped pinpoint the chemical evolution – both carried out at the CFN. Further research was conducted at SLAC’s SSRL and Berkeley Lab’s National Center for Materials Synthesis, Electrochemistry, and Electron Microscopy, with computational support from the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment.
Toward Real-Time, Real-World Analyses
“The chemical reactions involved in these batteries are startlingly complex, and we need even more advanced methods of interrogation,” Xin said. “My CFN colleagues are developing ways to watch the reactions in real-time rather than the stop-and-go approach we used in these studies.”
These in operando microscopy techniques, led in part by Brookhaven Lab materials scientists Dong Su, Feng Wang, and Eric Stach, will image reactions as they unfold in liquid environments. Custom-designed electrochemical contacts and liquid flow holders will aim to provide insights to the reactions and will help develop optimization strategies for NMC cathode material.”
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