Advances in Nanomaterials for Lithium-Ion/Post-Lithium-Ion Batteries and Supercapacitors.

Energy storage and conversion are key factors for enabling the transition from fossil fuels to intermittent renewables [...

Stripping and Plating a Magnesium Metal Anode in Bromide-Based Non-Nucleophilic Electrolytes.

A non-nucleophilic Hauser base hexamethyldisilazide (HMDS) magnesium electrolyte possesses inherent properties required for a magnesium-sulfur battery. However, the development of full cell batteries using HMDSCl-based electrolytes is still hampered by a low coulombic efficiency. A new electrolyte formulation of non-nucleophilic HMDS magnesium containing bromide as a halide instead of chloride was obtained through a simple and straightforward synthesis route.

Influence of the Molecular Weight of Poly-Acrylic Acid Binder on Performance of Si-Alloy/Graphite Composite Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries.

In this study Si-alloy/graphite composite electrodes are manufactured using water-soluble poly-acrylic acid (PAA) binder of different molecular weights (250, 450 and 1250 kg mol). The study aims to assess the behavior of the different binders across all the steps needed for electrodes preparation and on their influence on the electrodes electrochemical behavior. At first, rheological properties of the water-based slurries containing Si-alloy, graphite, conductive carbon and PAA are studied.

Magnesocene-Based Electrolytes: A New Class of Electrolytes for Magnesium Batteries.

Unlike ferrocene, bis(η -cyclopentadienyl)magnesium (magnesocene, MgCp ) is slightly dissociated in solvents, such as ethers, resulting in electrolyte solutions with low conductivity. MgCp /tetrahydrofuran solutions make possible reversible magnesium plating and stripping with low over-potentials for many cycles. The Mg deposits appear with a cauliflower-like morphology.

Study of Water-Based Lithium Titanate Electrode Processing: The Role of pH and Binder Molecular Structure.

This work elucidates the manufacturing of lithium titanate (Li₄Ti₅O, LTO) electrodes via the aqueous process using sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), guar gum (GG) or pectin as binders. To avoid aluminum current collector dissolution due to the rising slurries' pH, phosphoric acid (PA) is used as a pH-modifier. The electrodes are characterized in terms of morphology, adhesion strength and electrochemical performance.

An in situ SEM-FIB-based method for contrast enhancement and tomographic reconstruction for structural quantification of porous carbon electrodes.

A new in situ Scanning Electron Microscope-Focused Ion Beam-based method to study porous carbon electrodes involving Pt filling of pores from gaseous precursors has been demonstrated to show drastically improved image contrast between the carbon and porous phases when compared with the Si-resin vacuum-impregnation method. Whereas, the latter method offered up to 20% contrast, the new method offers remarkably higher contrast (42%), which enabled fast semi-automated demarcation of carbon boundaries and subsequent binarization of the images with very high fidelity. Tomographic reconstruction of the porous carbon electrode was then obtained from which several morphological parameters were quantified.

Electrochemical and electron microscopic characterization of Super-P based cathodes for Li-O2 batteries.

Aprotic rechargeable Li-O2 batteries are currently receiving considerable interest because they can possibly offer significantly higher energy densities than conventional Li-ion batteries. The electrochemical behavior of Li-O2 batteries containing bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide lithium salt (LiTFSI)/tetraglyme electrolyte were investigated by galvanostatic cycling and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. Ex-situ X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were used to evaluate the formation/dissolution of Li2O2 particles at the cathode side during the operation of Li-O2 cells.