A Novel In-situ Electrochemical Cell for Neutron Diffraction Studies of Phase Transitions in Small Volume Electrodes of Li-ion Batteries

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2014 · Journal of Power Sources

OSTI ID:1163577

Vadlamani, Bhaskar S ^[1]; An, Ke ^[1]; Jagannathan, M. ^[2]; Ravi Chandran, K. ^[2]

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1. ORNL
2. University of Utah

The design and performance of a novel in-situ electrochemical cell that greatly facilitates the neutron diffraction study of complex phase transitions in small volume electrodes of Li-ion cells, is presented in this work. Diffraction patterns that are Rietveld-refinable could be obtained simultaneously for all the electrodes, which demonstrates that the cell is best suited to explore electrode phase transitions driven by the lithiation and delithiation processes. This has been facilitated by the use of single crystal (100) Si sheets as casing material and the planar cell configuration, giving improved signal-to-noise ratio relative to other casing materials. The in-situ cell has also been designed for easy assembly and to facilitate rapid experiments. The effectiveness of cell is demonstrated by tracking the neutron diffraction patterns during the charging of graphite/LiCoO2 and graphite/LiMn2O4 cells. It is shown that good quality neutron diffraction data can be obtained and that most of the finer details of the phase transitions, and the associated changes in crystallographic parameters in these electrodes, can be captured.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Spallation Neutron Source
• Sponsoring Organization: SC USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1163577
• Journal Information: Journal of Power Sources, Journal Name: Journal of Power Sources Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 161
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English