Speaker
Description
The search for renewable and sustainable electrical energy storage devices has become vital to meet current environmental challenges [1]. Iron oxides represent a promising,environmentally friendly material [2,3] which can be converted into a lithium intercalating material via chemical lithiation [4]. Owing to their high surface area and thus potential high electrochemical surface activity, nanostructured iron oxides are ideally suitable for use as electrode materials. A continuous lithiation process starting at the materials surface is expected to proceed through different phases. A detailed understanding of the
lithiation progress is therefore crucial for the optimization of chemical lithiation processing.
In this contribution, we apply magnetic small-angle neutron scattering to gain detailed insight into the lithiation progress from the particle surface to the core. We observe the formation of a core-shell nanoparticle morphology, which we attribute to a lithiated shell
that grows in thickness upon lithiation. By correlating chemical and magnetic nanoparticle morphologies, we aim to link the magnetic properties with the degree of lithiation.
References:
[1] D. Larcher, J.-M. Tarascon, Nat. Chem. 7, 19-29 (2015).
[2] L. Zhang, H. B. Wu, X. Wen, Adv. Energy Mater. 4, 1300958 (2014).
[3] M. Valvo, A. Liivat, H. Eriksson et al, ChemSusChem 10, 2431-2448 (2017).
[4] P. G. Bruce et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47, 2930-2946 (2008).
