Enhanced Imaging of Lithium Ion Battery Electrode Materials
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Biton, M
Yufit, V
Tariq, F
Kishimoto, M
Brandon, NP
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In this study we present a novel method of lithium ion battery electrode sample preparation with a new type of epoxy impregnation,
brominated (Br) epoxy, which is introduced here for the first time for this purpose and found suitable for focused ion beam scanning
electron microscope (FIB-SEM) tomography. The Br epoxy improves image contrast, which enables higher FIB-SEM resolution (3D
imaging), which is amongst the highest ever reported for composite LFP cathodes using FIB-SEM. In turn it means that the particles
are well defined and the size distribution of each phase can be analyzed accurately from the complex 3D electrode microstructure
using advanced quantification algorithms.
The authors present for the first time a new methodology of contrast enhancement for 3D imaging, including novel advanced
quantification, on a commercial Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) LiFePO4 cathode. The aim of this work is to improve the quality of
the 3D imaging of challenging battery materials by developing methods to increase contrast between otherwise previously poorly
differentiated phases. This is necessary to enable capture of the real geometry of electrode microstructures, which allows measurement
of a wide range of microstructural properties such as pore/particle size distributions, surface area, tortuosity and porosity. These
properties play vital roles in determining the performance of battery electrodes.
brominated (Br) epoxy, which is introduced here for the first time for this purpose and found suitable for focused ion beam scanning
electron microscope (FIB-SEM) tomography. The Br epoxy improves image contrast, which enables higher FIB-SEM resolution (3D
imaging), which is amongst the highest ever reported for composite LFP cathodes using FIB-SEM. In turn it means that the particles
are well defined and the size distribution of each phase can be analyzed accurately from the complex 3D electrode microstructure
using advanced quantification algorithms.
The authors present for the first time a new methodology of contrast enhancement for 3D imaging, including novel advanced
quantification, on a commercial Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) LiFePO4 cathode. The aim of this work is to improve the quality of
the 3D imaging of challenging battery materials by developing methods to increase contrast between otherwise previously poorly
differentiated phases. This is necessary to enable capture of the real geometry of electrode microstructures, which allows measurement
of a wide range of microstructural properties such as pore/particle size distributions, surface area, tortuosity and porosity. These
properties play vital roles in determining the performance of battery electrodes.
Date Issued
2016-09-02
Date Acceptance
2016-08-22
Citation
Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 2016, 164 (1), pp.A6032-A6038
ISSN
0013-4651
Publisher
Electrochemical Society
Start Page
A6032
End Page
A6038
Journal / Book Title
Journal of the Electrochemical Society
Volume
164
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2016. Published by ECS. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Subjects
Energy
0303 Macromolecular And Materials Chemistry
0306 Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural)
0912 Materials Engineering
Publication Status
Published