Reversible superdense ordering of lithium between two graphene sheets

Matthias Kühne, Felix Börrnert, Sven Fecher, Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl, Johannes Biskupek, Dominik Samuelis, Arkady V. Krasheninnikov, Ute Kaiser () and Jurgen H. Smet ()
Additional contact information
Matthias Kühne: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
Felix Börrnert: Universität Ulm
Sven Fecher: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
Mahdi Ghorbani-Asl: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
Johannes Biskupek: Universität Ulm
Dominik Samuelis: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research
Arkady V. Krasheninnikov: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf
Ute Kaiser: Universität Ulm
Jurgen H. Smet: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research

Nature, 2018, vol. 564, issue 7735, 234-239

Abstract: Abstract Many carbon allotropes can act as host materials for reversible lithium uptake1,2, thereby laying the foundations for existing and future electrochemical energy storage. However, insight into how lithium is arranged within these hosts is difficult to obtain from a working system. For example, the use of in situ transmission electron microscopy3–5 to probe light elements (especially lithium)6,7 is severely hampered by their low scattering cross-section for impinging electrons and their susceptibility to knock-on damage8. Here we study the reversible intercalation of lithium into bilayer graphene by in situ low-voltage transmission electron microscopy, using both spherical and chromatic aberration correction9 to enhance contrast and resolution to the required levels. The microscopy is supported by electron energy-loss spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations. On their remote insertion from an electrochemical cell covering one end of the long but narrow bilayer, we observe lithium atoms to assume multi-layered close-packed order between the two carbon sheets. The lithium storage capacity associated with this superdense phase far exceeds that expected from formation of LiC6, which is the densest configuration known under normal conditions for lithium intercalation within bulk graphitic carbon10. Our findings thus point to the possible existence of distinct storage arrangements of ions in two-dimensional layered materials as compared to their bulk parent compounds.

Keywords: Graphene Sheets; Bilayer Graphene; Reversible Intercalation; Electron Energy-loss Spectroscopy (EELS); Electron Energy Loss Near-edge Structure (ELNES) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0754-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:564:y:2018:i:7735:d:10.1038_s41586-018-0754-2

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0754-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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