IN SITU EXPERIMENTATION WITH BATTERIES USING NEUTRON AND SYNCHROTRON X-RAY DIFFRACTION

There has been a recent growth in using neutron diffraction to study in situ the structural and electrochemical evolution of lithium-ion battery materials. The information extracted from these in situ neutron diffraction studies complement the laboratory-based or synchrotron-based X-ray diffraction studies. Essentially these studies harness the advantages provided by each technique to probe the evolution of long-range ordered or crystalline materials in batteries. This paper highlights some of the recent progress on in situ neutron and synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction studies and helps to explain which type of elements should be considered by researchers for a successful experiment. To facilitate these explanations new results are presented building on previous in situ neutron powder diffraction studies. It is envisioned that future studies will use the combination of in situ synchrotron X-ray and neutron diffraction to probe electrode evolution.