This work emphasizes the importance of understanding the phenomena of dendrite formation occurring in rechargeable metal batteries. These batteries can reach quite a high specific energy but have inherently short life due to dendritic growth. The current work implements different tomographic methods to visualize dendritic growth in real time and to quantify various dendrite characteristics at submicron and nanoscale levels. The methodology presented here can be also extended to study the growth of other metal dendrites in aqueous and nonaqueous batteries.
A dense composite of silver and Ce0.8Sm0.2O2−δ (Ag-CSO) was manufactured from ceramic
nanoparticles coated by electroless deposition of silver. At 700 °C,
a 1-mm-thick membrane of the composite delivered an excellent oxygen
permeation rate from air with a value of 0.04 μmol cm–2 s–1, using argon as the sweep gas and 0.17 μmol
cm–2 s–1 using hydrogen. The low
sintering temperature of the CSO nanoparticles allows the use of Ag
rather than Pt or Pd and reduces the amount of metal needed for electronic
conductivity to just 5.6 vol %, which is lower than any value reported
in the literature. Oxygen diffusivity measurements confirmed that
the oxygen migration remained high in the composite, with an increase
in surface exchange coefficient of three orders of magnitude over
Gd-doped ceria. The ease of membrane fabrication, combined with encouraging
oxygen permeation rates, demonstrate the promise of the material for
high-purity oxygen separation below 700 °C.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.