The past decade faced with rapid development of electric vehicles, portable electronic devices and green energy production, in which lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) technology plays a key role. In this context, extensive research has been made for increasing their energy density along with power density. This challenge requires pushing forward the resolution limits to probe degradation phenomena occurring at the active material level for a deeper understanding of the batter failure mechanism.

In this context, X-ray techniques have been intensively used to probe in details the morphological/chemical evolution along cycling of various battery materials. For instance, X-ray computed tomography brings valuable 3D information for material structural analysis at scale ranging from the micrometre to the nanometre. High flux and high coherent X-ray nano-beams provided by the synchrotron sources, combined with the fast acquisition obtained thanks to the new generation of cMOS detectors, make it possible to carry out in situ and operando measurements at the nano-scale to 3D monitor dynamic phenomena. These developments present a real interest for the energy storage applications.

This presentation will focus on the hard X-ray nano-tomography set-up developed at the ID16B beamline of the ESRF and its applications toward operando measurements applied to different case studies related to energy materials. This will be discussed as well in regards to the benefits and limitations brought by the extremely brilliant X-ray source EBS developed at the ESRF.