Battery Material Characterization

Introducing a new mass spectrometry technique: Laser Ablation Laser Ionization (LALI) meets Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (TOF-MS) to fill existing gaps in materials characterization

Trace-level detection for virtually the entire periodic table, lithium to uranium
Quantifiable elemental mapping for measuring spatial heterogeneity
Depth profiling with nanometer-scale resolution

Exum's revolutionary Massbox: the first commercial LALI-TOF-MS instrument empowers battery developers and manufacturers to:

Develop new battery chemistries
Design the optimum cell geometry
Characterize failure mechanisms

Case Study: Elemental Mapping for Process Control

As next-generation batteries transition from academic research to market production, developers must prioritize process control to produce reliable batteries at scale. Electrode manufacturing is a critical and costly step, and efficient material characterization is crucial to ensuring the final cell's performance and safety.

This study showcases the Massbox's ability to identify local variations in active material within a silicon carbon composite anode. Such variations are important to characterize and diagnose since they may result in local overcharging and subsequent lithium plating.

Case Study: Identifying Contamination in Electrodes

Advanced battery developers and cell manufacturers typically rely on a laboratory's worth of spectroscopy and microscopy tools to characterize common defects like particle contamination and inhomogeneities in electrode composition.

This study highlights the Massbox's proficiency in scanning millimeter-scale areas of electrodes, pinpointing contaminant particles down to the micron scale, and effectively diagnosing their origins. A key benefit of the Massbox is its ability to detect all elements present without requiring the user to specify which elements to seek.