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

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

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

Maintaining the physical integrity of electrode microstructures in Li-ion batteries is critical to significantly extend their cycle life. This is especially important for high-capacity anode materials such as silicon, whose operational volume expansion exerts huge internal stress within the anode, resulting in electrode destruction and capacity fade. In this study, we demonstrate that by incorporating metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with carboxylate organic linkers into Si-based anodes, a s... 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 aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) is one of the materials under consideration as an electrolyte in future all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. In ceramic processing, the presence of secondary phases and porosity play an important role. In a presence of more than one secondary phase and pores, image analysis must tackle the difficulties about distinguishing between these microstructural features. In this study, we study the phase evolution of LATP ceramics sintered at temperatures b... Read more

In aqueous solutions, electro/chemically deposited metals usually grow outward into electrolyte. Here we report that the reduced Al grows inward into the sample, surprisingly, while Mg (in pure Mg and Al₂Mg₃ alloy) is galvanically replaced with Al in an ionic liquid. The galvanic replacement reaction (GRR) of Al₂Mg₃ involves a dealloying process that generates a nanoporous Al skeleton, and simultaneously the inward-growth plating of Al that thicke... Read more