Structure-Performance Relationships of Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes Revealed by Contrast-Variation Small-Angle Neutron Scattering

Understanding the link between how porous lithium ion battery (LIB) electrodes are manufactured and the structure-function relationships that determine the performance is critical to accelerating the development of emergent battery technologies with higher rate cycling and capacity. Porous electrodes are manufactured by suspending a mixture of micron-sized electrochemically active material, polymer binder, and carbon black (CB) in a solvent and depositing it onto a metallic current collector. The complex processing conditions encountered during formulation and coating create many challenges for developing quantitative structure-property relationships. Neutron scattering measurements, performed through collaborations at National Laboratories, are essential to discovering these relationships and exploiting them for lithium ion battery design. In this talk, I will describe our group's collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop unique sample environments and analysis methods for neutron scattering measurements applied to battery science.