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numerical reports based on simple geometries have been published over the years to
study various aspects of this complicated problem (4, 5, 6, 7). However, though fracture
and failure of anode is the primary reason for performance degradation, this aspect is not
studied in detail. Few recent studies have incorporated the principal stress based failure
law that may predict the nucleation of cracks in a quasi-brittle material, but not the actual
propagation and its effect on the capacity retention. While they are useful for qualitative
understanding of the mechanisms responsible for failure, these models are not predictive
in nature, which can guide the battery designers towards the design of optimal
configuration and achieving the desired materials properties.
We present herein a thermodynamically consistent theoretical framework that couples
electro-kinetics with the deformation failure response of the anode materials system. We
postulate that a damage zone precedes the actual nucleation of a crack. Segregation of Li
atoms in this zone reduces the strength of the material in the damage zone progressively
thus resulting in crack formation. A multi-physics cohesive zone model has been
developed to model the process of crack nucleation and propagation. Transport of Li in Si
is coupled with the mechanical behavior in a finite deformation setting. Transport of
Lithium from the electrolyte to the anode is modeled by the well-known Butler-Volmer
equation. Our model includes mechanical behavior of the current collector, and in turn
examines the interaction of its passive response with the active response of a-Si based
anode. The input to our model is the C-rate of charging and the output is the consequent
resulting voltage capacity curve. Our model is capable of simulating the multiple
electrochemical cycles, and thus can predict the interfacial crack propagation leading to
capacity fade mimicking the experimental current-voltage response for an amorphous Si
anode. We describe the details of the model along with its experimental validation against
a-Si thin film anode deposited on copper, the established anode current collector used in
experiments in the next section. The article is concluded with a discussion of simulations
results combined with suggestions for future improvements of the model.
Model description
Transport of Li atoms from electrolyte to anode
During galvanostatic electrochemical cycling of thin film anode, if the anode with
maximum theoretical Li alloying capacity C mAh/g is to be completely lithiated in n h,
then the Li flux across the electrolyte-anode surface J Li (mole m-2 s-1) is given by
, where A is the surface area per unit volume of the active
material, F as the Faraday constant and m is mass of the active material. The
overpotential s at the a-Si anode- electrolyte interface can be estimated through the
Butler-Volmer equation as
[1]
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u = u0 on 0u .
Thermodynamical considerations
The free energy functional of the anode material can be additively decomposed as
[5]
(F,c) = 1 (Fe ) + 2 (c)
with 1 (Fe ) the elastic free energy density and 2 (c) the chemical energy density. The
elastic free energy depends on the overall deformation gradient (through F ) as well as
the concentration of the lithium atom. However, chemical energy density of the anode
material depends only on the concentration of lithium. The material time derivative of the
free energy can thus be written as
-T C
[6]
c
F : M e : L +
= 2F-1
C e
c
2
The second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor S e and Mandel stress tensor M e at the
intermediate configuration is expressed as
and M e = C eSe , respectively,
with
D=S:
where,
In the
is the Cauchy stress
C
+ c J 0
2
[7]
Substituting the expression for free energy functional [6], the above inequality can be
expressed as
[8]
From the first part of the above inequality, we derive the thermodynamically consistent
definition of second Piola-Kirchhoff stress tensor S in the reference configuration as
S = F-1Se F-T , The second part of the inequality offers the expression of the chemical
potential in the reference configuration as
Furthermore, the inequality
above can be ensured only when the third component is negative semi-definite, which
provides the definition of the lithium flux of anode in the reference configuration as
where the mobility
is a symmetric and positive definite tensor. In the
present study, we assume isotropic mobility tensor such that
. Thus, the atomic
flux can be recast as
with D = MRT / c as the diffusivity of the
lithium atom in the anode material. Therefore, the equation for the transport of lithium in
the anode material can be expressed as
[9]
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This equation suggests that the change of concentration of lithium in the anode is driven
by the concentration gradient as well as the gradient of pressure.
in the
absence of any segregation. The last term of the above equation stems from the
segregation of Li atoms, with is the chemical potential and as the excess of these
atoms on the interface. Note that, in the absence of this term, our formulation coincides
with the classical displacement based cohesive technique.
When segregation is present, is a function of both and . We assume a
separable form as follows:
[11]
is a parameter varying with the fraction of absorbed atoms c int
(equivalent to ), and degradation constant Sb . To estimate adsorption of Li atoms from
where,
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Problem description
The numerical model presented in the previous section has been used to simulate the thin
film anode combined with the base and the interface between them during the
lithiation/delithiation cycles and the ensuing chemo-mechanical response has been
studied. After the first cycle of charging and discharging, the a-Si film undergoes vertical
fracture and forms islands attached to the current collector (12). During further cycling,
the stresses generated in the film are not sufficient to generate additional vertical cracks
and the island structure is therefore preserved during further electrochemical cycling (13).
Thus, in this study we will simulate the mechanical response of a single a-Si island along
with the elasto-plastic deformation of the substrate attached to it. To study the anode
structure, we have considered a three-dimensional domain as shown in Figure 1(c), where
the bottom substrate represents the current collector and the top island represents the Si
thin film having a cohesive layer in between. The separation between the vertical cracks
formed in the thin film (9) structure is observed to be in the micron range. The a-Si thin
film thickness was considered as 250 nm with 1 m x 1 m sized island to mimic the
experimental conditions, and 3 times larger dimensions were considered for the substrate
to sustain the volume expansion of the island having a rigid support at the bottom surface.
Selection of domain for simulation is explained in Figure 1. As we are considering
galvanostatic charging and discharging, a constant Li-ion flux is applied through the top
surface of the a-Si island as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: (a) Schematics of a-Si thin film anode half cell. (b) a-Si thin film
anode after 1st electrochemical cycle. (c) Domain selected for simulation.
In this numerical study, material parameters for the a-Si island are given as Diffusion
(7), expansion co-efficient
(8), Youngs
coefficient
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F (Faraday constant)
R (Universal gas constant)
T (Room temperature)
a , c (Symmetry factor)
c e (Li concentration in
96485.34 C.mol-1
8.314 m2.kg.s-2.K-1.mol-1
398 K
0.5
1000 mol.m-3
electrolyte)
c max (Max. Li concentration in 3.651 105 mol.m-3 (corresponding to 4200 mAh/g)
a-Si)
k (Reaction rate constant)
m2.5.s-1.mol-0.5 (Lithiation)
m2.5.s-1.mol-0.5 (Delithiation)
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initiates and propagates when the stress at the middle of the island exceeds the interfacial
strength (see Figure 4(b)). As the maximum tensile stress at the interface occurs at the
completion of lithiation, if the interface survives the stress state at complete lithiation
(~280% volume expansion), the island structure will survive the consecutive
electrochemical cycles (assuming that fatigue and any other mechanism does not degrade
the interfacial strength appreciably). Figure 5 shows the normalized interfacial crack
initiation time for anode configurations with elastic current collector for different ratios
of ESubstrate/ESi. Active material is cycled at C/2.5 charge rate and the crack initiation time
is normalized with the theoretical time required for complete lithiation of 250nm a-Si thin
film; =0 indicating start of lithiation and =1 indicating completion of lithiation or
start of delithiation. The interfacial strength is taken as 1 GPa and values of fracture
toughness are varied between 15 to 50 J/m2.
Figure 4: (a) Finite element discretization of an intact a-Si island and current collector.
(b) Interfacial crack (at middle) between a-Si island and the elastic substrate
). (c) Simulated interfacial crack (at corner) between a-Si island and the
(
Cu substrate after undergoing severe plastic deformation.
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cycles, we have chosen two particular experimental findings. One of them is concerned
with the stability of the Si thin film of Cu Substrate. During lithiation, plastic flow of the
base occurred at the corner of the island that reduced the tensile stress at the center as
shown in Figure 4(c). However, during delithiation or de-alloying, the permanent set due
to plasticity of the substrate attempts to pull back on the corner of the island that was
trying to relax to its original configuration. This mechanism produced very high tensile
stress at the interface and caused the nucleation of primarily mode I crack at the corner.
However, after a few cycles the plastic shake down occurred; the stress at the crack tip
fell just below the interfacial strength, and the crack was arrested. But subsequent
segregation of Li in the interfacial region, as experimentally observed in (9), weakens the
interface gradually causing an intermittent motion of the crack (and attendant loss in
capacity). Finally the crack propagates all through the interfacial region from the corner
towards the center causing loss of contact and drastic fade in capacity. For the second
case, the low modulus of carbon enabled very large deformation of the substrate. During
lithiation as shown in Figure 4(b), the middle of the island arched upward along with the
substrate material thus preventing the build up of high stress. The maximum principal
stress remained far below the interfacial strength. During delithiation, the whole system
comes back to its original configuration elastically. Interfacial stress was low enough
such that strength reduction due to segregation was not enough to result in failure of the
interface over many cycles. These simulations thus reveal that the stiffness of the base is
an important design parameter that influences long term performance of silicon anode. It
is hoped that these computational mechanics based models will help the experimentalists
design improved silicon based anode systems.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge support to this work by the Centre for Complex
Engineered Multifunctional Materials (CCEMM), University of Pittsburgh. PNK
acknowledges support of the DOE-BATT program and the Edward R. Weidlein Chair
Professorship funds for partial support of this research.
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