In situ AFM visualization of Li–O₂ battery discharge products during redox cycling in an atmospherically controlled sample cell

• Kumar Virwani,
• Younes Ansari,
• Khanh Nguyen,
• Francisco José Alía Moreno-Ortiz,
• Jangwoo Kim,
• Maxwell J. Giammona,
• Ho-Cheol Kim and
• Young-Hye La

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2019, 10, 930–940, doi:10.3762/bjnano.10.94

• -ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study the reactions under ultrahigh vacuum as well as 500 mtorr O2 pressure. Zheng et al. [20] performed in situ scanning electron microscopy of the reaction whereby they observed the growth of toroidal lithium peroxide (Li2O2) particles along a specific direction as

From lithium to sodium: cell chemistry of room temperature sodium–air and sodium–sulfur batteries

• Philipp Adelhelm,
• Pascal Hartmann,
• Conrad L. Bender,
• Martin Busche,
• Christine Eufinger and
• Juergen Janek

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1016–1055, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.105

• Figure 3a. Under ambient conditions, the thermodynamically stable phases are lithium oxide (Li2O) and lithium peroxide (Li2O2). As these compounds are insulators, GDLs with a high surface area are used to improve the kinetics. Two other cell concepts that have been studied to a lesser extent are cells

Lithium peroxide crystal clusters as a natural growth feature of discharge products in Li–O₂ cells

• Tatiana K. Zakharchenko,
• Anna Y. Kozmenkova,
• Daniil M. Itkis and
• Eugene A. Goodilin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 758–762, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.86

• often observed and still unexplained phenomenon of the growth of lithium peroxide crystal clusters during the discharge of Li–O2 cells is likely to happen because of self-assembling Li2O2 platelets that nucleate homogeneously right after the intermediate formation of superoxide ions by a single-electron

• oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This feature limits the rechargeability of Li–O2 cells, but at the same time it can be beneficial for both capacity improvement and gain in recharge rate if a proper liquid phase mediator can be found. Keywords: lithium–air batteries; lithium peroxide; oxygen reduction

• into lithium peroxide (Li2O2) [11], which always demonstrates a very complex morphology [12] revealing sphere-, torroid- or rozette-like aggregates of plate-like particles. This repeated observation evidences a complex formation mechanism of lithium peroxide. Here we report a new study of Li2O2

Electrochemical and electron microscopic characterization of Super-P based cathodes for Li–O₂ batteries

• Mario Marinaro,
• Santhana K. Eswara Moorthy,
• Jörg Bernhard,
• Ludwig Jörissen,
• Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens and
• Ute Kaiser

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2013, 4, 665–670, doi:10.3762/bjnano.4.74

• in Figure 4. Discharging the battery forms lithium peroxide on the cathode as seen in Figure 4B. It can be noticed that the Li2O2 particles appear to have a hollow structure with a smooth surface and nodular morphology. The dimensions of the particles are typically in the range of 200 to 350 nm. From

• shown in Figure 6. The formation and dissolution of lithium peroxide crystals upon discharging and recharging are evident from these images. By comparing Figure 6A with Figure 4B, the following three features are obvious: (a) the morphology of the particles is rather smooth in both the cases (b) the

• electrodes. The formation of lithium peroxide crystals on the discharged electrode up to 1000 mAh·(g carbon)−1 is clearly visible in (A). The scale bars correspond to 200 nm. Acknowledgements Financial support from Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) in the framework of LuLi project