New observations by researchers at MIT have revealed the inner workings of a type of electrode widely used in lithium-ion batteries. The new findings explain the unexpectedly high power and long cycle life of such batteries, the researchers say. The findings appear in a paper in the journal Nano Letters co-authored by MIT postdoc Jun Jie Niu, research scientist Akihiro Kushima, professors Yet-Ming Chiang and Ju Li, and three others. Diagram illustrates the process of charging or discharging the lithium iron phosphate (LFP) electrode. As lithium ions are removed during the charging process, it forms a lithium-depleted iron phosphate (FP) zone, but in between there is a solid solution zone (SSZ, shown in dark blue-green) containing some randomly distributed lithium atoms, unlike the orderly array of lithium atoms in the original crystalline material (light blue). This work provides the first direct observations of this SSZ phenomenon. Illustration courtesy of the authors The electrode material studied, lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), is considered an especially promising material for lithium-based rechargeable batteries; it has already been demonstrated in applications ranging from power tools to electric vehicles to large-scale grid storage. The MIT researchers found that inside this electrode, during charging, a solid-solution zone (SSZ) forms at
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