Title: 

Nernstian Li+ intercalation into few-layer graphene and its use for the determination of K+ co-intercalation processes

Year of Publication:

2021

Authors:

Jingshu Hui, A Nijamudheen, Dipobrato Sarbapalli, Chang Xia, Zihan Qu, Jose L Mendoza-Cortes, Joaquín Rodríguez-López

Journal:

Chemical Science

Abstract:

Alkali ion intercalation is fundamental to battery technologies for a wide spectrum of potential applications that permeate our modern lifestyle, including portable electronics, electric vehicles, and the electric grid. In spite of its importance, the Nernstian nature of the charge transfer process describing lithiation of carbon has not been described previously. Here we use the ultrathin few-layer graphene (FLG) with micron-sized grains as a powerful platform for exploring intercalation and co-intercalation mechanisms of alkali ions with high versatility. Using voltammetric and chronoamperometric methods and bolstered by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show the kinetically facile co-intercalation of Li+ and K+ within an ultrathin FLG electrode. While changes in the solution concentration of Li+ lead to a displacement of the staging voltammetric signature with characteristic slopes ca. 54–58 mV per decade …

URL:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/sc/d0sc03226c    \