Mapping Mechanical Properties of Lithium/Polymer Battery Composites with Nanoindentation
Introduction The primary purpose of the work presented herein is to investigate the mechanical properties of a lithium rechargeable battery cathode 1-3 by utilizing both the classic XP CSM and newer, ultrafast DCM Express Test methods with a Nano Indenter G200 (Keysight Technologies) . Scanning electron microscopy analysis is used as a support to understand the obtained results and gain information about the differences between the two adopted nanoindentation methods. Particular attention is focused on the analysis of the mechanical and elastic properties of new-generation lithium/polymer electrodes, with the final aim of correlating the life cycle and the number of charge and discharge cycles with the mechanical properties of the electrodes. By employing an improved grid nanoindentation method 4-6 , it is possible to perform a statistical deconvolution of the mechanical properties and to understand how many (and which) heterogeneous material phases there are as well as how they i