Watching Energy Storage Materials in Operation: In-Situ X-ray Microscopy, Diffraction and Spectroscopy

Michael Toney (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory)

The development of sustainable technologies for energy generation, use and storage is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and this has led to a substantial interest and increase in activities to develop new materials for these technologies. For the development of the next generation of energy storage devices, novel materials are crucially needed to increase storage capacity (e.g., longer range for electric vehicles) while retaining adequate cycle lifetimes. Germanium and sulfur are promising anodes and cathodes in Li-ion batteries, respectively, because they have high specific charge capacities compared to current electrodes. However, both these materials have issues limiting performance. We have used in-situ transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) to investigate structural and morphological changes in Ge anodes and sulfur cathodes during operation. This talk will describe our results (1,2)

[1] J. Nelson, S. Misra, Y. Yang, A. Jackson, Y. Liu, H. Wang, H. Dai, J.C. Andrews, Y. Cui, M.F. Toney, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 134, 6337?6343 (2012). [2] Y.W. Lim et al., in preparation.

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