Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) guarantees the conservation of important metal resources by reducing demands on raw supply and offsetting the energy and environmental costs associated with its manufacture. Employing a molten salt as a solvent for extraction affords a much greener and simpler route to metal recovery by electrochemical means. The current mechanistic understanding of the electrochemical recovery of metals in molten salts needs to be improved for the process to be op... Read more

Composite cathodes comprising nanoscale
powders are expected to impart with high specific surface
area and triple phase boundary (TPB) density, which will lead
to better performance.

However, uniformly mixing nanosized heterophase powders remains a challenge due to their high surface energy and thus ease with which they agglomerate into their individual phases during the mixing and sintering
processes. In this study, we successfully synthesized La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe... Read more

The prevailing electrode fabrication method for lithium-ion battery electrodes includes calendering at high pressures to densify the electrode and promote adhesion to the metal current collector.

However, this process increases the tortuosity of the pore network in the primary transport direction and imposes severe tradeoffs between electrode thickness and rate capability. With the aim of understanding the impact of pore tortuosity on electrode kinetics, and enabling cell designs with ... Read more

The microstructural degradation of a composite silicon electrode at different stages in its cycle life was investigated in 3D using X-ray nano-computed tomography. A reconstructed volume of 36 μm × 27 μm × 26 μm from the composite electrode was imaged in its pristine state and after 1, 10 and 100 cycles. Particle fracturing and phase transformation was observed within the electrode with increased cycling. In addition, a distinct, lower X-ray attenuating phase was clearly resolved,... Read more

In recent years, the ability to examine the processes that cause the catastrophic failure of batteries as a result of thermal runaway has improved substantially. In this work, the effect of thermal runaway on the microstructure of the electrodes of a Na-ion battery is examined using X-ray computed tomography for the first time. The thermal failure induced via accelerating rate calorimetry enabled the examination of failed electrodes, which were subsequently compared with fresh s... Read more

Redox flow batteries offer a potential solution to an increase in renewable energy generation on the grid by offering long-term, large-scale storage and regulation of power. However, they are currently underutilised due to cost and performance issues, many of which are linked to the microstructure of the porous carbon electrodes used. Here, for the first time, we offer a detailed study of the in situ effects of compression on a commercially available carbon felt electrode. Visualisation ... Read more

In this paper a fully three dimensional, multiphase, micro-scale solid oxide fuel cellanode transport phenomena numerical model is proposed and verified. The Butler-Volmer model was combined with empirical relations for conductivity and diffusivity – notably the Fuller-Shetler-Giddings equation, and the Fickian modelfor transport of gas reagents. FIB-SEM tomography of a commercial SOFC stack anode was performed and the resulting images were processed to acquire input data. ... Read more

X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) across multiple length scales is utilized for the first time to investigate the physical abuse of high C-rate pulsed discharge on cells wired individually and in parallel.. Manufactured lithium iron phosphate cells boasting high rate capability were pulse power tested in both wiring conditions with high discharge currents of 10C for a high number of cycles (up to 1200) until end of life (<80% of initial discharge capacity retained). The parallel ass... Read more

Solid–liquid interfaces are important in a range of chemical, physical and biological processes but are often not fully understood owing to the lack of high-resolution characterization methods that are compatible with both solid and liquid components. For example, the related processes of dendritic deposition of lithium metal and the formation of solid–electrolyte interphase layers are known to be key determinants of battery safety and performance in high-energy-density lithium-metal bat... Read more

The performance of electrochemical devices depends on the three-dimensional (3D) distributions of microstructural features in their electrodes. Several mature methods exist to characterize 3D microstructures over the microscale (tens of microns), which are useful in understanding homogeneous electrodes. However, methods that capture mesoscale (hundreds of microns) volumes at appropriate resolution (tens of nm) are lacking, though they are needed to understand more common, less ideal electrode... Read more

Alternative battery technologies are required to meet growing energy demands and address the limitations of present technologies. As such, it is necessary to look beyond lithium-ion batteries. Zinc batteries enable high power density while being sourced from ubiquitous and cost-effective materials. This paper presents, for the first time known to the authors, multi-length scale tomography studies of failure mechanisms in zinc batteries with and without commercial microporous separators. In bo... Read more

Nickel-rich transition metal oxide materials […] are of great interest for achieving immediate improvements in the energy density of Li-ion batteries and for risk reduction within the Li-ion battery supply chain.
[…] An increase in Ni content in NMC materials leads to accelerated degradation […]. This potentially complicates their adoption in applications requiring extended cycle life such as in electric vehicles.

Recent developments in X-ray characterization to... Read more

Given the urgent need to move to low-carbon technologies, batteries are being increasingly used in a range of applications. Lithium-ion batteries are the most widely used chemistry, but to meet the growing demand, there is a need to move beyond lithium towards alternative battery chemistries. Metal–air batteries are a group of such battery alternatives that hold promise, especially for stationary power and flexible electronics applications.

However, barriers to their widespread adopt... Read more

Lithium ion battery failure occurs across multiple length scales. In this work, the properties of thermal failure and its effects on electrode materials were investigated in a commercial battery using a combination of accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) and multi-length scale X-ray computed tomography (CT). ARC measured the heat dissipated from the cell during thermal runaway and enabled the identification of key thermal failure characteristics such as onset temperature and the rate of heat g... Read more

A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is an electrochemical device that converts the chemical energy of hydrogen directly into electricity. A single cell usually has a form of a flat plate in which an impervious and dense ion-conducting electrolyte is sandwiched between two porous catalytic electrodes: an anode and a cathode. Fuel is fed to the anode side, and the air is supplied to the cathode. The gasses cannot mix to avoid unproductive combustion. Instead, gasses hit catalyst material, lose their... Read more

Degradation mechanisms within solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) during thermal cycling limit operational start-up times and cell lifetime, and must therefore be better understood and mitigated. This work explores such mechanisms using digital volume correlation (DVC) techniques applied to lab-based X-ray tomograms where the microstructural evolution is evaluated during the operational cycling of a Ni–YSZ/YSZ cell. To emulate reduced start-up times, five tomograms were collected over four operat... Read more

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries operate via electrochemical reactions between positive and negative electrodes, formed by complex porous microstructures. An improved understanding of these materials can lead to a greater insight into the link between microscopic electrode morphology and macroscopic performance. The practice of calendering electrodes after manufacturing has been widely used to increase the volumetric energy density and improve the electrical contact between electrode... Read more

Despite the importance of studying the instability of delithiated cathode materials, it remains difficult to underpin the degradation mechanism of lithium-rich cathode materials due to the complication of combined chemical and structural evolutions. Herein, we use state-of-the-art electron microscopy tools, in conjunction with synchrotron X-ray techniques and first-principle calculations to study a 4d-element-containing compound, Li2Ru0.5Mn0.5O3. We find surprisingly, after cycling, ruthenium... Read more

This study presents a technique to directly characterize the carbon and binder domain (CBD) in lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery electrodes in three dimensions and use it to determine the effective transport properties of a LiNi_0.33Mn_0.33Co_0.33O₂ (NMC) electrode. X-ray nanocomputed tomography (nano-CT) is used to image an electrode composed solely of carbon and binder, whereas focused ion beam–scanning electron microscopy is used to analyze cross-sect... Read more

The importance of reliable battery diagnostic systems has grown substantially in recent years as a result of the use of high power Li-ion battery packs in an increasingly diverse range of applications. Here, spatially resolved ultrasound acoustic measurements are used to analyse the condition of Li-ion electrodes. Ultrasonic measurements are performed on a commercial mobile phone battery over the full operating voltage window with the lithiation and delithiation of electrodes o... Read more

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert the chemical energy of fuels into electrical energy. An ideal option for a wide variety of portable, stationary, and automotive applications is using the polymer electrolyte
fuel cells due to their modular design, high efficiency, and environmental benefits.

A 3D microstructure of the non-woven gas diffusion layers (GDLs) of polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) is reconstructed using a stochastic method. For a commercial GDL, ... Read more