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Understanding size-dependent migration of a two-phase lithiation front coupled to stress

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Abstract

Recent in-situ experiments show that stress-driven migration of the phase interface during two-phase lithiation in nanosized particles exhibits self-limiting and size-dependent behaviors wherein the mechanism remains unclear. In the reaction-limited regime, we develop a mechano-kinetic coupling model with a nonlinear kinetic law to study the size effect of such phase boundary movement accounting for possible sources of stresses by chemical lithiation, concurrent plasticity, surface/interface elasticity, and elastic softening of the lithiated phase. We show that both hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic stresses contribute to the driving force for the phase interface movement and result in the size-dependent slowing down behavior of the phase interface. The obtained results reveal why the interface movement slows down more dramatically in the smaller particle, and there are similar lithiation time scales in nanoparticles of different sizes observed in experiments.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank A. F. Bower for helpful discussions and valuable suggestions. Y. Ni was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11472262), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB22040502), the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. A.K. Soh was supported by the Advanced Engineering Programme, Monash University Malaysia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, Department of Modern Mechanics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, People’s Republic of China

    Yuyang Lu, Yong Ni & Linghui He

  2. School of Engineering, Monash University Malaysia, Subang Jaya, Malaysia

    Ai Kah Soh

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  1. Yuyang Lu
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Lu, Y., Soh, A.K., Ni, Y. et al. Understanding size-dependent migration of a two-phase lithiation front coupled to stress. Acta Mech 230, 303–317 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-018-2303-3

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