Electrode Lithiation: Effects of Particle Size, Electronic Connectivity, and Incoherent Nanoscale Domains on the Sequence of Lithiation in LiFePO4 Porous Electrodes (Adv. Mater. 42/2015)

On page 6591, W. Chueh and co-workers use high-resolution X-ray microscopy to study the sequence of lithiation in LiFePO4 battery electrodes and reveal that local electronic connectivity limits the rate capability. For electrodes with homogeneous interparticle electronic connectivity via the carbon black network, the smaller particles lithiate first. For electrodes with heterogeneous connectivity, the better-connected particles preferentially lithiate.