Studying the Initial Stage of Nucleation and Growth of a New Phase during Cathodic Intercalation of Lithium into Aluminum

Kinetics of cathodic intercalation of lithium into aluminum from a 0.5 M LiCl solution in dimethylformamide at the stage of nucleation and growth of intermetallic compound β-LiAl is studied by one- and two-pulse potentiostatic methods. If the length of the first potential pulse is short, the current at the beginning of the second pulse is proportional to the overvoltage squared. The experimental data point to a lamellar-spiral growth of β-LiAl crystals at the initial stage of their development and to a change in the balance between different growth mechanisms as a function of the overvoltage and surface coverage by β-LiAl.