Simultaneous multimaterial operando tomography of electrochemical devices

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Imaging Techniques

Background:

• Electrochemical energy devices rely on complex internal processes.
• Operando characterization is crucial for understanding and improving these devices.
• Existing methods struggle to distinguish multiple components and interfaces with high contrast.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop advanced operando characterization tools for electrochemical devices.
• To achieve high-contrast imaging of multiple interacting components and interfaces.
• To enable rational engineering of physiochemical processes in energy devices.

Main Methods:

• Simultaneous dual-modality tomography using neutron and X-ray imaging.
• Advanced image processing including iterative reconstruction and metal artifact reduction.
• Application to electrochemical devices for multimaterial imaging.

Main Results:

• Achieved signal and contrast enhancements of up to 10 and 48 times, respectively.
• Successfully resolved operando distributions of six interacting fuel cell components, including void space.
• Demonstrated the highest reported pairwise contrast for simultaneous, decoupled spatiotemporal characterization.

Conclusions:

• High-contrast dual-modality tomography provides a new gold standard for operando electrochemical characterization.
• This technique offers significant improvements over conventional single-modality imaging.
• The methods have broader applicability to various multimaterial systems.