Reversibility of anodic lithium in rechargeable lithium–oxygen batteries

Jiang-Lan Shui, John S. Okasinski, Peter Kenesei, Howard A. Dobbs, Dan Zhao, Jonathan D. Almer and Di-Jia Liu ()
Additional contact information
Jiang-Lan Shui: Argonne National Laboratory
John S. Okasinski: Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
Peter Kenesei: Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
Howard A. Dobbs: Argonne National Laboratory
Dan Zhao: Argonne National Laboratory
Jonathan D. Almer: Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
Di-Jia Liu: Argonne National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Non-aqueous lithium–air batteries represent the next-generation energy storage devices with very high theoretical capacity. The benefit of lithium–air batteries is based on the assumption that the anodic lithium is completely reversible during the discharge–charge process. Here we report our investigation on the reversibility of the anodic lithium inside of an operating lithium–air battery using spatially and temporally resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction and three-dimensional micro-tomography technique. A combined electrochemical process is found, consisting of a partial recovery of lithium metal during the charging cycle and a constant accumulation of lithium hydroxide under both charging and discharging conditions. A lithium hydroxide layer forms on the anode separating the lithium metal from the separator. However, numerous microscopic ‘tunnels’ are also found within the hydroxide layer that provide a pathway to connect the metallic lithium with the electrolyte, enabling sustained ion-transport and battery operation until the total consumption of lithium.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3255 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3255

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3255

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().