Characterization of the 3-dimensional microstructure of a graphite negative electrode from a Li-ion battery

The 3-dimensional microstructure of a porous electrode from a lithium-ion battery has been characterized for the first time. We use X-ray tomography to reconstruct a 43 × 348 × 478 μm sample volume with voxel dimensions of 480 nm, subsequent division of the reconstructed volumes into sub-volumes of different sizes allow us to determine microstructural parameters as a function of sub-division size.

We show that the minimum size for a representative volume element is about 43 × 60 × 60 μm for volume-specific surface area, but as large as the full sample volume for porosity and tortuosity.