Better Battery Design by Analysis

Better Battery Design by Analysis

By Dr Cameron Chai, Peter Airey and Dr Kamran Khajehpour, AXT PTY LTD

The race is well and truly on to make the next battery breakthrough that will help electric vehicles (EVs) travel further or simply extend the time between charges for your iPhone. Key to any developments are the materials, and of course, developing an understanding of their chemistry and structure.

In Situ X-Ray Diffraction

XRD is a staple materials characterisation technique, commonly used to analyse powders, including battery raw materials. Using a battery testing cell, XRD’s, including small benchtop units like the Rigaku MiniFlex or larger systems like the SmartLab can be used to test batteries in situ so you can measure phase changes at any point during the charge/discharge cycle.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Benchtop NMR instruments like the X-Pulse from Oxford Instruments allow you to directly measure diffusion of electrolyte components. This provides critical information for electrolyte design, such as identification and quantification of breakdown products. As well as monitoring degradation reaction.

In Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy

TEM allows imaging materials at the atomic scale. Using specially design platforms like the Lightning (biasing and heating) or Stream (biasing or heating in a liquid environment) from DENSsolutions, dynamic experiments can be performed that mimic real-life operating conditions. Observing them in this way opens a window to clearly understand how your specific battery chemistry behaves.

Computed Tomography

CT systems like the TESCAN UniTOM XL are valuable tools for non-destructive 3D imaging of batteries. Useful for refining the fabrication process or quality control in production environments, CT can be used to identify minute structural imperfections that can impact the quality and performance of batteries.

Summary

Battery research is a highly competitive landscape both in industry and academia. Understanding how specific battery chemistries behave can be key to their success. There are many analytical techniques used in materials science such as XRD, NMR, TEM and CT that can be used to accelerate the R&D process as well as later in production.