11th International Meeting of the Union for Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources (UCANS11)

Tracking the Progress of Nonuniform Deterioration in a Lithium-Ion Battery Using Bragg-Edge Imaging -- an Application of the AISTANS Compact Neutron Source

27 Feb 2025, 14:20

20m

Pinnacle at the Pier

Contributed Oral Session 10

Speaker

Koichi Kino (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST))

Description

One of the challenges to overcome for commercial lithium-ion batteries (LIB) is suppression of power-storage degradation due to charge-discharge cycles. Some of the present authors (K. Kino and T. Fujiwara) and their collaborators previously reported nonuniform degradation of LIBs nondestructively and quantitatively by a Bragg-edge imaging experiment conducted at a large neutron facility, the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC).[1] However, further understanding this process, especially clarifying the degradation progression, requires tracking the deterioration of an LIB cell over a long term by repeating Bragg-edge imaging after some charge-discharge cycles. Compact accelerator-driven neutron sources (CANS) are suitable for this research because of their flexible neutron-beam schedule and machine operation with a small number of researchers.
Therefore, we are conducting a long-term measurement of repeated Bragg-edge imaging of a commercial LIB cell for mobile phones after multiple charge-discharge cycles at AISTANS (Analytical facility for Industrial Science and Technology using Accelerator based Neutron Source) [2-4], which is located at AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) Tsukuba in Japan. AISTANS can provide a thermal-cold pulsed neutron beam from a decoupled solid-methane moderator. Thanks to the optimization of AISTANS for Bragg-edge imaging from the most upstream (an electron accelerator) to the most downstream (a neutron detector), we succeeded in imaging three crystalline phases of a negative electrode (graphite, LiC12, and LiC6) in an area of approximately 50×50 mm2 for an initial fresh state. Currently, measurements after charge-discharge cycles are being conducted.
In this presentation, the latest result of tracking progress of nonuniform deterioration for a LIB cell by Bragg-edge imaging will be shown as an application of CANS.

References
[1] K. Kino et al., Appl. Phys. Express 15 (2022) 027005.
[2] K. Kino et al., Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2022) 137:1260.
[3] B.E. O'Rourke et al., Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, B 464 (2020) 41–44.
[4] K. Kino et al., Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 927 (2019) 407–418.