Quality Control of battery powders with AZtecBattery

What is AZtecBattery?

AZtecBattery is a classification scheme dedicated to the QA/QC of precursor battery powders. It has been launched in 2020 as a solution for the battery industry; customers essentially requested such a solution as a means of easily acquiring comparable results across multiple sites. AZtecBattery works on top of the existing AZtecFeature platform.

Based on input from a few customers and access to samples used for production of NCM cathode material allowed us to generate an applications profile and classification scheme. Customers can also generate their own classification schemes and report templates.

How does AZtecBattery work?

The AZtecBattery workflow is as follows:

• In a single field of view, select the particles of interest by defining a grayscale range on the electron image (known as thresholding).

• Obtain accurate quantitative results by collecting the composition information of each particle in the field of view with EDS (Figure 1).
• Automate a large run by defining a larger data acquisition area. The system controls the movement of the sample stage, moves between fields of view and repeats the above steps to complete the data acquisition from all particles within the defined range.
• Count the number of particles, classify them based on shape or composition and generate reports (Figure 2).

Figure 1 A single field of view analysed using AZtecBattery.

In the latest version of AZtec, the speed of analysis of identified particles has been significantly improved. This also applies to AZtecBattery, as it is built on the AZtecFeature platform. In addition, we have updated the classification schemes for AZtecBattery to cover a wider range of materials used in the battery industry.

Figure 2 Example of reporting of the detected particles using predefined classification scheme.

This is a good example on how input from customers can lead to the development of relevant products to support rapidly growing demands for quality control in relation to battery and EV applications.

The data acquisition demonstrated above was performed on loose, unprepared powder. The same experiment can be performed on flat milled powder, just like it is showcased in the example below (Figure 3). This type of preparation is useful for analysing samples with other techniques such as EBSD, in which case additional information can be obtained (e.g. particle orientation and texture).

Figure 3 Collection of morphological and EDS data from flat milled particles of precursor battery powder.

With the techniques discussed here we’re using SEM-based equipment to decipher the secrets held by the individual particles (Figure 4).

If you are interested in the analysis of battery powders and other battery materials and want to know more about the range of products we offer, you can watch our webinar on demand as long as other webinar from our webinar library.