Phase evolution of magnetron sputtered nanostructured ATO on grid during lithiation–delithiation processes as model electrodes for Li-ion battery

Abstract

Sb-doped SnO2 (ATO) nanostructured thin films were deposited on holey carbon grids by magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Li/electrolyte/ATO cells were assembled by using the deposited ATO grids as test electrodes. The phase component of the ATO electrodes deposited on grids before and after induction at different charge-discharge stages was characterized by using a transmission electron microscope. The results of the investigation show that the nanostructured ATO thin films undergo a reversible lithiation-delithiation process: the decomposition of SnO2 and the occurrence of metallic Sn followed by the formation of an Li-Sn alloy during the discharge process, and then the reversible de-alloying reaction of the Li-Sn alloy and Sn reaction with Li2O, and even partial formation of SnO2 during charge process. The work also shows that the method deposited the active materials directly on the holey carbon grids is a simple and effective way for the investigation of the phase evolution of the electrodes in electrochemical cells.

High electrochemical performance and lithiation–delithiation phase evolution in CuO thin films for Li-ion storage

“…Moreover, for the advantages of high resolution, instantaneous data collection, visualized/digital morphology and microstructure, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigations have been shown to be an effective method for characterizing the phase, microstructure and related evolution of the crystalline materials and even amorphous materials. 5,[25][26][27][28][29] In this work, carbon-free and binding-free CuO thin lms with a unique hierarchical nanostructure were deposited directly on Cu foil via a radio frequency (RF) reactive magnetron sputtering method. The CuO thin lms used as electrodes in Liion storage showed a high specic capacity, good cycling stability and excellent rate performance.…”

Synthesis of TiO2@ATO core–shell nanofibers using coaxial electrospinning

“…Recently, some paper reported that ATO had the high reversible capacity and superior cycle retention as anode for Li-ion batteries due to the presence of Sb inducing an enhanced formation of metal from ATO [17][18][19].…”

Gel-combustion synthesis and electrochemical performance of LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2as cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

“…[18][19][20] Because there is no obvious structural transition during the electrochemical cycling in these compound systems, 21 it is not suitable to investigate the redox mechanism by only the phase and/or structure analysis methods such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which are useful for materials with phase transition. [22][23][24][25] X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) became one of the most effective methods in studying the electrochemical characteristics of LNMC-based electrodes in LIBs, [26][27][28][29] for the valence state of the transition metal cations indeed changed during the charge-discharge processes. In the reported work, XPS analysis was applied on LNMC before and/or aer the full charge-discharge process.…”