{"id":30745,"date":"2025-10-30T14:47:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=30745"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:47:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:02:20","slug":"light-it-up-battery-particles-tell-the-true-story-of-a-batterys-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/light-it-up-battery-particles-tell-the-true-story-of-a-batterys-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Light it up: Battery particles tell the true story of a battery’s charge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
This difference map shows the optical properties of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide\u00a0particles in a coin-cell battery (brighter particles indicate a higher charged state). By capturing this brightness data over time, researchers can use statistical analysis to build a clear mathematical model of the battery’s heterogeneity. Credit: Purdue University\/Kejie Zhao research group<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lithium-ion batteries power our phones, cars, and even homes; ensuring their safe and efficient behavior has become incredibly important. Using a simple optical technique, Purdue University researchers have observed a battery’s individual particles lighting up as they charge – enabling a more complete picture of the battery’s overall health and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLithium-ion batteries \u2014 in fact, all batteries \u2014 function because of millions of chemical interactions happening at the particle level,\u201d said Kejie Zhao<\/a>, professor of mechanical engineering<\/a>. \u201cCharacterizing them becomes a mechanical and electrochemical problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Zhao\u2019s lab<\/a>, they use many tools to bridge this gap between mechanics and electrochemistry to create better batteries. One of these tools is a simple RGB camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only been recently discovered that individual particles in a battery\u2019s electrode actually appear brighter as they charge<\/a>,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cOur breakthrough is that we look at hundreds of particles at a time, and can use their brightness levels to determine how evenly the charge is distributed through the electrode.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experiment began with a lithium-ion coin cell battery in a glove box filled with inert gas (lithium is volatile when exposed to the open air). Zhao’s team focused a simple optical microscope onto a group of 100 to 1,000 individual particles. They slowly charged the battery and recorded time-lapse video of the same group of particles over several hours. By analyzing the brightness level of these individual particles, they could reconstruct an extremely precise spatial model of how evenly the battery is charged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe amazing part about this process is that you don\u2019t need high-powered tools \u2014 just a simple optical microscope and camera,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t even need to be in focus; the brightness levels consistently deliver accurate data either way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With image processing and data analysis, the team extracted valuable data about the construction and operation of these batteries. \u201cRight now, the only way to quality control for a battery\u2019s particles is to examine them in the factory,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cBut by observing optically how they charge over time, we get a more accurate picture. We\u2019ve established that there is a direct mathematical correlation between the optical brightness of particles and the overall state of charge of the battery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s important, because a battery\u2019s charging and discharging behavior relies on its heterogeneity, or how evenly distributed particles are throughout the electrode. If charge is concentrated in one place, the battery is more likely to degrade, fail, or even burn catastrophically. \u201cEven at the particle level, clusters of charge can lead to local defects, which can lead to degraded performance and eventually thermal runaway,\u201d Zhao said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Zhao\u2019s experiments focused specifically on lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC), he said that this optical process has been proven to work for many electrode materials \u2014 lithium cobalt oxide, graphite, and others \u2014 because of the change of electrical conductivity upon charging and discharging. In other words, this characterization process can be used for any type of battery formulation in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBatteries have always been difficult to diagnose,\u201d he said. \u201cSeeing them behave like this, in an active charging or discharging state, offers so much more information than analyzing them in a static state. We\u2019ve proven the theoretical foundation, and now we can use optical microscopes with confidence to analyze today\u2019s batteries and establish the science for future battery technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and by the National Science Foundation under award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lithium-ion batteries power our phones, cars, and even homes; ensuring their safe and efficient behavior has become incredibly important. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-innovation"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-200x200.webp",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-675x450.webp",675,450,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-600x467.webp",600,467,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-600x467.webp",600,467,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity.webp",700,467,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-550x360.webp",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-95x65.webp",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-640x467.webp",640,467,true],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/heterogeneity-150x100.webp",150,100,true]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Innovation<\/a>","tag_info":"Innovation","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30747,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30745\/revisions\/30747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}