Effects of Particle Size, Electronic Connectivity, and Incoherent Nanoscale Domains on the Sequence of Lithiation in LiFePO₄ Porous Electrodes

Yiyang Li; Sophie Meyer; Jongwoo Lim; Sang Chul Lee; William E Gent; Stefano Marchesini; Harinarayan Krishnan; Tolek Tyliszczak; David Shapiro; Arthur L David Kilcoyne; William C Chueh

doi:10.1002/adma.201502276

Effects of Particle Size, Electronic Connectivity, and Incoherent Nanoscale Domains on the Sequence of Lithiation in LiFePO₄ Porous Electrodes

Adv Mater. 2015 Nov;27(42):6591-7. doi: 10.1002/adma.201502276. Epub 2015 Oct 1.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 496 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
² Department of Physics, Stanford University, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
⁴ Advanced Light Source One Cyclotron Road, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁵ Stanford Institute of Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA.

PMID: 26423560
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201502276

Abstract

High-resolution X-ray microscopy is used to investigate the sequence of lithiation in LiFePO4 porous electrodes. For electrodes with homogeneous interparticle electronic connectivity via the carbon black network, the smaller particles lithiate first. For electrodes with heterogeneous connectivity, the better-connected particles preferentially lithiate. Correlative electron and X-ray microscopy also reveal the presence of incoherent nanodomains that lithiate as if they are separate particles.

Keywords: LiFePO4; X-ray chemical imaging; particle size dependence; ptychography.