34 T he materials in anodes and cathodes within a lithium-ion battery affect voltage, capacity, and battery life. When a battery is discharging, the lithium ions move from the anode into the cathode. During the charging process, that movement is reversed. Electrolytes conduct the lithium ions and serve as a carrier between the cathode and the anode when electric currents pass through an externa...

An in-depth understanding of material behaviours under complex electrochemical environment is critical for the development of advanced materials for the next-generation rechargeable ion batteries. The dynamic conditions inside a working battery had not been intensively explored until the advent of various in situ characterization techniques. Real-time transmission electron microscopy of electro...

Thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries may be prevented by using

In this article, we investigate the storage of lithium ions between two parallel graphene sheets using the continuous approximation and the 6-12 Lennard-Jones potential. The continuous approximation assumes that the carbon atoms can be replaced by a uniform distribution across the surface of the graphene sheets so that the total interaction potential can be approximated by performing surface in...

The resonance region of lithium (58 – 81 eV) was investigated using monochromatized synchrotron radiation and ion time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometry. The photon beam of the PGM undulator beam line passed through the experimental chamber containing vaporized lithium atoms. The lithium ions created were accelerated by a pulsed electric field into the TOF flight tube and detected by a Z-stack of mi...

We described a lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) battery comprising a graphene electrode, a dimethoxyethane-based electrolyte, and H2O and lithium iodide (LiI) additives, lithium hydroxide (LiOH) being the predominant discharge product. We demonstrate, in contrast to the work of Shen et al., that the chemical reactivity between LiOH and the triiodide ion (I3 (-)) to form IO3 (-) indicates that LiOH can be...

Rechargeable batteries made from low-cost and abundant materials operating in safe aqueous electrolytes are attractive for large-scale energy storage. Sodium-ion battery is considered as a potential alternative of current lithium-ion battery. As sodium-intercalation compounds suitable for aqueous batteries are limited, we adopt a novel concept of Li(+)/Na(+) mixed-ion electrolytes to create two...

Recently emerging potassium ion (K-ion) batteries offer a lower-cost alternative to lithium-ion batteries while enabling comparably high storage capacity. Here, we leverage the strong Raman spectroscopic response of few-layered graphene to provide the first insight into the electrochemical staging sequence for K+ ions in graphitic carbons. Our analysis reveals the signature of a dilute stage I ...

The atomic and electronic structures of binary Li2S-P2S5 glasses used as solid electrolytes are modeled by a combination of density functional theory (DFT) and reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulation using synchrotron X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy data. The ratio of PSx polyhedral anions based on the Raman spectroscopic results is reflected in the glassy structures...