What is it about?
The paper is a review of case studies and tips and tricks to solve and refine the crystal structures of specifically lithium battery cathode materials using quantitative electron diffraction (3DED, EDT, PED, micro-ED,...).
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Why is it important?
Whereas the active materials can only be studied in powder diffraction form using X-rays and neutrons because the active particles are too small, we can obtain single crystal data on each particle separately if we use electron diffraction. Single crystal data gives a much clearer view of the reciprocal space and thus a more conclusive solution of the structure. In many cases there is certain information that can only be obtained through the electron diffraction methods, especially when the powder methods are clouded by the presence of multiple phases.
Perspectives
Quantitative electron diffraction techniques are complementary to XRD and ND, with as advantage that you can study much smaller particles and but disadvantage that the diffraction is no longer a single event per electron. For lithium battery cathode materials this disadvantage seems to be reduced because of the characteristic quite low Z of the atoms in these materials. When single crystal XRD or ND can be done, there is no need for ED, however for these active particles, exactly this is what is impossible, as those particles that are large enough for XRD or ND single crystal data are inactive because of their too long diffusion lengths. So in my opinion, single crystal electron diffraction has a large potential to deliver unique information for LIB cathode materials.
Prof. Dr. Joke Hadermann
Universiteit Antwerpen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Structure solution and refinement of metal-ion battery cathode materials using electron diffraction tomography, Acta Crystallographica Section B Structural Science Crystal Engineering and Materials, August 2019, International Union of Crystallography,
DOI: 10.1107/s2052520619008291.
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