Tunable Mechanochemistry of Lithium Battery Electrodes

The interplay between mechanical strains and battery electrochemistry, or the tunable mechanochemistry of batteries, remains an emerging research area with limited experimental progress. In this report, we demonstrate how elastic strains applied to vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅), a widely studied cathode material for Li-ion batteries, can modulate the kinetics and energetics of lithium-ion intercalation. We utilize atomic layer deposition to coat V₂O₅ materials onto the surface of a shapememory superelastic NiTi alloy, which allows electrochemical assessment at a fixed and measurable level of elastic strain imposed on the V₂O₅, with strain state assessed through Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Our results indicate modulation of electrochemical intercalation potentials by ∼40 mV and an increase of the diffusion coefficient of lithium ions by up to 2.5-times with elastic prestrains of <2% imposed on the V₂O₅. These results are supported by density functional theory calculations and demonstrate how mechanics of nanomaterials can be used as a precise tool to strain engineer the electrochemical energy storage performance of battery materials.