1 research outputs found
Tunable Mechanochemistry of Lithium Battery Electrodes
The interplay between
mechanical strains and battery electrochemistry,
or the tunable mechanochemistry of batteries, remains an emerging
research area with limited experimental progress. In this report,
we demonstrate how elastic strains applied to vanadium pentoxide (V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub>), a widely studied cathode material for Li-ion
batteries, can modulate the kinetics and energetics of lithium-ion
intercalation. We utilize atomic layer deposition to coat V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub> materials onto the surface of a shapememory superelastic
NiTi alloy, which allows electrochemical assessment at a fixed and
measurable level of elastic strain imposed on the V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub>, with strain state assessed through Raman spectroscopy and
X-ray diffraction. Our results indicate modulation of electrochemical
intercalation potentials by ∼40 mV and an increase of the diffusion
coefficient of lithium ions by up to 2.5-times with elastic prestrains
of <2% imposed on the V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub>. These results
are supported by density functional theory calculations and demonstrate
how mechanics of nanomaterials can be used as a precise tool to strain
engineer the electrochemical energy storage performance of battery
materials