Fast and Extensive Intercalation Chemistry in Wadsley-Roth Phase Based High-Capacity Electrodes
Wadsley-Roth (W-R) structured oxides featured with wide channels represent one of the most promising material families showing compelling rate performance for lithium ion batteries. But the structural origin for the fast kinetics of W-R structures is not well understood. Herein, we report an indepth study on the fast and extensive intercalation chemistry of phosphorus stabilized W-R phase PNb9O25 and its application in high energy and fast-charging devices. We explore the intercalation geometry of PNb9O25 and identify two geometrical types of stable insertion sites with the total amount (2.22 per Nb ion) much higher than conventional intercalation-type electrodes. We reveal the ion transportation kinetics that the Li ions initially diffuse along the open type III channels and then penetrate to type-α edge sites with low kinetic barriers. Through in-situ TEM and ex-situ XRD investigations, we confirm that the whole intercalation/deintercalation process proceeds via a solidsolution behavior with continuous lithium (de)occupying/(re)ordering on the identified insertion sites exhibiting nearly "zero-stress" characteristics. Therefore, the oxide framework of PNb9O25 keeps almost intact with all the fast diffusion channels and insertion cavities well-maintained upon cycling, which accomplishes the unconventional electrochemical performance of W-R structured electrodes.
Introduction<!>Structure and cavity type elucidation for W-R PNb9O25<!>Lithium-ion Storage Examination<!>Lithiation Mechanism probed by DFT calculations and In-situ TEM Observation<!>Li ion diffusion coefficients (at 298K<!>Full-Cell construction<!>Conclusions<!>Methods<!>Preparation of materials<!>Synthesis of precursor of PNb9O25@CNTs:<!>Synthesis of PNb9O25/CNTs Composites:<!>Material characterizations<!>Electrochemical studies<!>First-principle calculations<!>In situ TEM characterization<!>Tables
<p>Lithium ion battery (LIB), the technique which enabled the wireless evolution, is now gaining a significant amount of attention for its applications in sustainable transportation and large-scale renewable energy storage fields. [1][2][3] LIBs armed with high energy density and, especially, high rate capability electrodes, are considered to be the ideal on-board energy storage solution for the electric vehicles and plugin hybrid vehicles (EVs and PHEVs), as well as many other emerging powerintensive devices. 4,5 Unlike the development of electrodes targeted on higher capacity and operation voltage, which has gone through several notable generations (e.g., LiCoO2, 6 LiFePO4, 7 LiNixMnyCo1x-yO2, 8 anionic redox active materials, 9,10 Si, 11 and so on), the pursuit of high rate electrode materials is still ongoing, especially on the anode side. 12,13 Carbonaceous materials (e.g., graphite) which have been employed since the first commercialization of LIBs, are proven to be inadequate for high rate usage. 14,15 Besides, their intrinsically low Li-ion accommodation/ extraction voltages lead to a strong tendency of Li-plating on the electrode surface and increased risk of dendrite formation at high current densities, which will then cause potential cell short circuit and fire hazards. 16 Transition metal oxides (TMOs) based intercalation-type electrodes like Li4Ti5O12 (LTO), 17 have been well-known for their superior Li ionic conductivity. LTO based electrode aided by nanosized carbon coatings can maintain a capacity around 150 mAh/g at a rate as high as 10 C with remarkable cyclability and constrained volume variation. 18 Li (de-)intercalate into LTO at a much higher voltage (~1.55 V) compared to graphite, preventing the Li plating and increasing battery safety. However, the high operation voltage of LTO also leads to a reduced output voltage of the full cell. Meanwhile, limited amount of Li insertion sites in LTO structure intrinsically constrains its capability to accommodate Li ions. As a result, energy density of the LTO based full cell is significantly compromised. Therefore, efforts are still being made on the search of electrode materials with fast Li transport, large capacity, strong electrochemical stability, minor volume expansion as well as modestly 'high' operation voltage for next-generation batteries.</p><p>Wadsley-Roth (W-R) oxides are one of the most promising fast rate material families for LIBs, exhibiting great potential to realize extensive intercalation chemistry because of the featured wide channels in their structures. W-R phases are generally ReO3-derivated structures with re-organized ReO3-type blocks (MO6 octahedra) through edge-sharing only or combined edge-sharing and cornersharing via tetrahedrally coordinated metal atoms (Figure . 1A). A W-R structure then can be defined by the way it is built: n×m×∞ with n and m stand for the number of octahedra in-plane and ∞ standing for the infinite layer stacking in the perpendicular direction. 19 The original ReO3 structure is highly symmetric featured with large cavities (type I) because of the empty cationic A sites (Figure . 1A).</p><p>Therefore, it drew great attention from the battery field for the exploration of possible reversible and extensive Li intercalation. However, pure ReO3 structure is found to be unstable upon limited lithiation followed by a series of phase transformation. 19 Compared with the corner-sharing-only shaky structure of original ReO3, the W-R structures are denser packed as a result of the introduction of edge-sharing connection and a fraction of the cavities are then occupied by octahedra/tetrahedra (Figure . 1A), leading to the remarkably improved structural stability upon ion intercalation. Meanwhile, partially preserved large cavities (type I-V, Figure . 1A, B) of the W-R structure show great promises for enabling the fast ionic transport. The combination of these two merits makes W-R phases extremely compelling for the application of fast and high-capacity electrodes for Li-ion batteries. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] To date, many W-R oxides have been reported as fast rate electrodes like T-Nb2O5, 20 TT-Nb2O5, 21 TiNb2O7, 22,23 Nb12WO33, 24 Nb16W5O55, 25 PNb9O25, 26 Nb14W3O44, 27 and Nb18W8O69 28 and Ti2Nb10O29-x. 29 However, the structural origin of the fast and extensive intercalation chemistry of the W-R structures is still unclear and thus calls for further investigation.</p><p>Herein, we revisit the phosphorus stabilized W-R phase PNb9O25, which featured with stable open channels, as intercalation-type electrode for boosted Li-ion storage. We report the excellent rate performance (392 mAh/g at 0.48 C, 253 mAh/g at 4.8 C) and remarkable cycling stability (90% retention after 1100 cycles at 7.2C) of PNb9O25@CNTs composite electrode in half-cell, and a record high energy density in full-cell (333.5 Wh/kg based on total mass of both electrodes). We provide an in-depth study on the lithiation reaction mechanism via density functional theories (DFT) calculations combined with in-situ TEM and ex-situ XRD analysis. The intercalation geometry of PNb9O25 is identified with 20 insertion sites per formula unit (f.u.) and the nearly "zero-stress" characteristic. The Li-ion diffusion is simulated in DFT based molecular dynamics with the activation energy determined as low as 0.27 eV, and the fast Li transport is observed through the wide channels and continued with penetrating movement of Li ions to edge sites. In-situ TEM and XRD results show an exclusive intercalation process during lithiation with all the intermediate configurations identified by DFT calculations. The whole intercalation/deintercalation process is determined to proceed via a solid solution behavior with continuous lithium (de)occupying/(re)ordering on the identified insertion sites.</p><p>During the process, no remarkable phase transition is detected with nearly intact host phosphorous niobium oxide backbone. As a result, the fast diffusion channels and insertion cavities are well maintained through cycling, leading to the outstanding rate capacity as observed.</p><!><p>Lithium insertion mechanism of W-R phases was first investigated by Cava et al. 19 They proposed that insertion mechanism of W-R phases is proceeded via occupying the six types (I-VI) of the cavities of the niobium oxide structures (Figure . 1B(a)). Then Koçer et al. 27 explored the lithium insertion mechanism in three tungsten niobium oxides (Nb12WO33, Nb14W3O44, Nb16W5O55) and identified all the window sites to be stable intercalation positions while lattice contractions were observed in the middle of the lithiation. Here in this study, PNb9O25 adopts a ReO3-derivated structure with partially sheared MO6 (NbO6) octahedral arrangement and PO4 tetrahedra addition. The formed crystallographic shear not only stabilizes the structures against undesirable octahedral distortions of the host framework upon lithiation as observed in ReO3, but also brings the structure with type III cavities and, in particular, two small cavity types: 1) formed by NbO6 octahedra and PO4 tetrahedra (actually 1/4 of type-VI, marked as type-α in this study), 2) formed by four edge-sharing NbO6 octahedra (marked as type-β in this study) as shown in Figure . 1B(b).</p><p>To have a detailed understanding of the intercalation mechanism of PNb9O25, we need to clarify the interactions between Li and these cavities. To locate the geometric Li-ion intercalation positions in the PNb9O25 structure, various empty sites (Table. S1 and Figure. S1) in the previously defined type-III cavities, type-α cavities and type-β cavities were considered: type-III center and window, type-α center and edge, and type-β center and edge. We define the stable intercalation sites as the sites which generally preserves its geometric positions upon relaxation in the DFT calculations (Figure . S1). After a thorough examination of all these sites in the PNb9O25 structure, we find that both the type-III window sites (16 per f.u.) as reported for other W-R phases in previous studies 27 and type-α edge sites (4 per f.u.) are stable upon intercalation.</p><p>The potential of one oxide structure on accommodating lithium ions can be estimated by the number of stable insertion sites per unit, which corresponds to the upper limit of its theoretical capacity. Therefore, we counted the numbers of various cavities considered in this study (type I-VI and α, β) for typical W-R phases and also check their potential stable insertion sites with the results summarized in Table . 1. The specific information was shown in Figure . S2. We make a hypothesis that window sites of all the large cavities (type I-V) are stable insertion sites among all W-R phases considering their similar coordinates which is partially supported by the previous study. 27 Also, all the α edge sites are presumed to be electrochemically active upon thorough lithiations. To make the amount of insertion sites comparable, we also calculated their numbers per electrochemical redox center, which is metal in the compound formula. Among them, PNb9O25, Nb16W5O55 and Nb18W8O69 have the top amount of stable lithium insertion sites of 2.22, 2.24, 2.31 per metal with the latter two have been reported to be high-rate electrodes. 25,28 Therefore, PNb9O25 show great promises to enable the fast ionic transport and extended intercalation chemistry.</p><!><p>To examine the electrochemical performance of PNb9O25, the PNb9O25 loaded on carbon nanotubes (PNb9O25@CNTs) were synthesized through a two-step solid-state thermal reaction method and detailed characterizations were performed to reveal the phase/elemental information of the assynthesized materials (Figure . S3-S5). Reaction of PNb9O25@CNTs with lithium (Figure . 2A) proceeds in the potential range from 0.01 to 3.0 V, with an average voltage of 1.47 V, which is lower to the average voltage of Li4Ti5O12 (1.55 V), Nb18W16O93 (1.67 V) and Nb16W5O55 (1.57 V). 25,30 The lower average voltage endows a higher energy density of PNb9O25@CNTs. The kinetics were examined over a range of current densities from 0.12 C to 48 C (Figure . 2A, B). An ultrahigh reversible capacity is achieved with 546 mAh/g based on the total mass of PNb9O25 and CNTs at 0.12 C, which remains 253 mAh/g at 4.8 C and 80 mAh/g at 48 C, indicating the outstanding rate capability of PNb9O25@CNTs. It should be noted that, the CNTs can significantly improve the electric conductivity and hence enable the thorough charge/discharge of PNb9O25, meanwhile the interfaces between PNb9O25 and CNTs can also contribute holes/deficiencies to accommodate more Li + ions. 31 The composite shows remarkable cycling stability along with a capacity of 203 mAh/g after 1100 cycles under full discharge/charge conditions (0.01-3V) at fixed 7.2 C, demonstrating a capacity retention of 90% (Figure . 2C, D). The redox kinetic properties of the PNb9O25@CNTs was investigated through cyclic voltammetry (CV) experiment at 0.1 mV/s (Figure . 2E and Figure. S6a). It is generally believed that the intense cathode /anodic peak pair in the range of 1.5-1.8 V can be attributed to the Nb 4+ /Nb 5+ redox couple; and the broad peak pair below 1.5 V can be assigned to the Nb 3+ /Nb 4+ redox couple. 32,33 . Simultaneously, similar CV curves of PNb9O25@CNTs among fresh PNb9O25@CNTs, after cycling 100 cycles and 200 cycles at 0.24 C further demonstrate excellent structural stability (Figure . S6b). The electrochemical performance of pure PNb9O25 was also tested and shown in Figure.</p><!><p>We conducted a DFT calculation study to investigate the lithium accommodation mechanism of PNb9O25 during the electrochemical lithiation process. We identify the structures of the intermediate configurations by energetically examining all geometrically distinct Li/vacancy orderings on stable intercalation sites as determined in the previous section using an in-house code (Figure . S8). 34 27 is also observed in this study (Figure . S10), indicating their potential existence for all W-R phase. The lithiation of PNb9O25 is then proven to be a complete solid-solution type intercalation process with the continuous Li-ion occupying /reordering which therefore enables its superb cycling performance.</p><p>Valence variations of P and Nb ions during the lithiation process of PNb9O25 are evaluated using Bader charge analysis. 37 Results indicate a thorough reduction of Nb 5+ →Nb 3+ during 0 < x < 20 and the reduction of P 5+ →P 3+ occurs at the end of the lithiation (x > 16), when Li-ions start to occupy the type-   [39][40][41] Additionally, theoretical calculations show the defects can decrease the lithium ion migration barriers and increase the diffusion coefficients and enhance the energy storage capacity of the electrode. 38,42 To examine the structural stability of PNb9O25 after cycling, ex-situ XRD, ex-situ TEM analysis were also carried out. Figure. 4D shows the comparison of XRD patterns of PNb9O25@CNTs at various states: the origin sample, the fully charged (3 V) and fully discharged (0.01 V) sample at the 2 nd cycle@ 0.12C, and the 200th cycle at 2.4 C. It is found that, with fully discharging to 0.01 V, the planes of (101), (231), (141) and (521) shifted to low-angle direction, suggesting that these crystal planes are sensitive to the lithiation process; and these peaks return to the original positions after full charging to 3.0 V, suggesting the excellent reversibility during lithiation/delithiation process. This trend is also observed from the XRD patterns of the sample after 200 cycles, which further confirms the excellent structural stability upon charge/discharge cycling. Promisingly, the simulated XRD patterns show exact peaks and shifts as observed experimentally, confirmed the configurations predicted using DFT calculations. Note that, except for peak shift, no new XRD peaks were generated during the lithiation/delithiation process, indicating the solid-solution characteristics of the electrochemical reaction. Ex-situ TEM (Figure . S18,19) results indicate that, the PNb9O25 remains the homogeneous element distribution and the original single crystal structure after cycling 100 cycles at 0.24 C, further providing clear evidence for the excellent structural stability of the PNb9O25.</p><p>In order to have a mechanistic understanding of the Li kinetics in PNb9O25, we also performed first-principle molecular dynamic (MD) calculations at different temperatures and the activation energy is calculated by fitting the Arrhenius plot (Figure . 5A,B). An essentially small activation energy of 0.27 eV is determined for PNb9O25 which is lower than the well-known fast electrode such as Li4Ti5O12 (0.3 eV), 43 indicating an excellent Li-ion conductivity and rate capacity of PNb9O25 as observed in this and previous studies. 44 From the recorded Li trajectories, we clearly can see the fast</p><!><p>) for the insertion and extraction are measured to be (2.77✕10 -12 m 2 /s) and (1.62✕10 -12 m 2 /s), which are higher than the record-high rate electrode of Nb16W5O55 (2.1✕10 -12 m 2 /s), 25 confirming the fast Li kinetics in PNb9O25.The Li + diffusion coefficients obtained from the MD simulations (4.8✕10 -12 m 2 /s at 298K) are in great agreement with the GITT measurements (Figure . 5C, D). Therefore, it can be summarized that the whole (de)lithiation process exhibits solidsolution reaction features and lithium (de)occupies/(re)orders on the identified insertion sites continuously. Nearly "zero-stress" characteristics is observed with PNb9O25 frameworks almost intact and all the fast diffusion channels and insertion cavities well-maintained upon cycling. The remarkable rate performance and large capacity of PNb9O25 then can be attributed to the robust structure and extensive intercalation chemistry.</p><!><p>To further envisage the practical application potential of our PNb9O25@CNTs electrode, a full cell battery with a structure of PNb9O25@CNTs|| 1M LiPF6/EC (ethylene carbonate) +DMC (dimethyl carbonate) || NCM was assembled within the potential range from 1.3-4.3V (Figure . 6A). The PNb9O25@CNTs anode was electrochemically pre-activated for lithium ions intercalation. In order to rationally analyze the electrochemical performance, the mass ratio of the cathode and anode materials was decided as 2.6:1 for charge balance ( S21) with a power density of 156.2 W/kg. Even if the current rate increases up to 16 C, the energy density remains 79.6 Wh/kg with the corresponding power density as high as 5277.35 W/kg. Our maximum energy density and the corresponding power density is much higher than previously reported LIB full cell devices of FCG//Si/C-IWGS (360 Wh/kg at 72 W/kg), 45 LCO/TO-MO (285 Wh/kg at 136 W/kg), 46 ZFO-600//LFP-CNT (202 Wh/kg at 75 W/kg), 47 LMO//TiO2 (148.8 Wh/kg at 148.8 W/kg), 48 LNMO//MnO (286.5 Wh/kg at 14.3 W/kg), 49 LMO//SnO2 (124.7 Wh/kg at 79.6 W/kg), 50 13 LCP//LTO (218.6Wh/kg at 21.9 W/kg), 51 LFP//TiO2 (103 Wh/kg at 34.3 W/kg), 52 (Figure . 6E). The higher energy density and power density of PNb9O25@CNTs can be contributed to following aspects.</p><p>On the one hand, the lower average voltage (~1.47 V) of PNb9O25 endows the full cell with higher output voltage; on the other hand, the larger block size provides open channels and a large amount of lithium insertion sites which can accelerate Li ion transportation and ensure the system with large capacity.</p><!><p>In summary, we have successfully demonstrated the excellent specific capacity and remarkable cycling stability (90% capacity retention after 1100 cycles at 7.2C) of PNb9O25@CNTs under full lithiation/delithiation conditions (0.01-3V). Further, we have revealed the intercalation mechanism of W-R phase PNb9O25 by combining in-situ TEM, ex-situ XRD and DFT calculations, and unveil the origin of the promising structural stability. The lithiation process of PNb9O25 was simulated with DFT calculation and MD, which identifies 20 insertion sites per formula unit (f.u.) showing a very low activation energy of 0.27 eV, and the discharge voltage profile is in good agreement with the experimental measurement. The whole intercalation/deintercalation process is determined to proceed via a solid solution behavior with continuous lithium (de)occupying/(re)ordering on the identified insertion sites. In(ex)-situ TEM and ex-situ XRD results demonstrate the exclusive intercalation process during lithiation, the intermediate during charging or final structures after cycles also corresponds well with the DFT simulated configurations. Simultaneously, PNb9O25 exhibits very limited volume expansion < 16.5%. A full-cell lithium ion battery has been constructed exhibiting a very high energy density of 1202 Wh/kg based on the mass of anode material, which can be attributed to the appropriate average voltage (~1.47 V) and open channels in PNb9O25.</p><!><p>Chemicals. Niobium(V) chloride (NbCl5) was purchased from Aladdin (99%, CAS:10026-12-7).</p><p>Ethylene glycol (EG) was purchased from the Aladdin (AR, 98%, CAS:107-21-1). Red phosphorous was purchased from the Aladdin (AR, 98.5%, CAS:7723-14-0). The Multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were purchased from XFNANO (D<8 nm×L 0.5-2 um,>95%),</p><!><p>PNb9O25/SWCNTs composites were prepared by a facile solvothermal reaction.</p><!><p>In a typical synthesis procedure, 0.075 g CNTs were dispersed in 30 mL of ethylene glycol (EG) and stirred for 1 h. Furthermore, 0.25 g NbCl5 were dissolved in the 30 mL of ethylene glycol (EG) with magnetic stirring for 30 min, giving rising to a homogeneous solution. Subsequently, the two solutions were mixed under magnetic stirring for 30 min. Finally, the obtained solution was transferred into a 100 mL Teflon container, sealed in an autoclave, and hydrothermally reacted at 180℃ for 24 h. The as-synthesized product was adequately washed several times with deionized water and alcohol, respectively, and further collected by centrifugation. The obtained precursor was allowed to dry in a nitrogen stream.</p><!><p>For the preparation of PNb9O25/CNTs composite, precursor and red P with a weight ratio of 1:3 was hand-milled in a mortar for 15 min. Subsequently, the mixture was further annealed at 900ºC in an Ar flow for 3 h with a ramping rate of 2°C min -1 to obtain the targeting material.</p><p>The pure PNb9O25 has a similar synthetic method without adding the CNTs.</p><!><p>Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns between 10 and 80° (∼2θ) were collected by Rangaku D/MAX-2500 powder diffractometer with Cu−Kα radiation (λ=0.154 nm) operated at 40 kV, 200 mA.</p><p>Hitachi-X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS) was measured by a VG ESCALAB MKIIX-ray photoelectron spectrometer using Mg−Kα as the exciting source (1253.6 eV). TG measurement was carried out by using Netzsch STA 449C thermal analyzer. Carl Zeiss SUPRA 55 SAPPHIRE field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM, Germany, 15 kV) Hitachi-7650 transmission electron microscopy (TEM, Japan, 80 kV), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM, JEOL JEM-3000F) were used to investigate the morphology and microstructure.</p><!><p>The working electrodes were prepared by mixture of 80 wt% synthesized active materials, 10 wt% acetylene carbon black, 10 wt% PVDF binder in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) onto a Cu foil and then dried in a vacuum furnace at 120 °C for 12 h. The 25 µm microporous monolayer membrane (PP, Celgard 2400) and Li metal was used as separator and counter electrodes respectively when assembled into a stainless-steel coin cell (2032) in an Ar-filled glovebox (both O2 and H2O levels below 0.1 ppm).</p><p>The electrochemical measurements were tested in 1 M LiPF6 solution in a mixture (1:1:1, in vol%) of dimethyl carbonate (DMC), ethylene carbonate (EC), and ethylmethyl carbonate (EMC) for LIBs.</p><p>Cyclic voltammetry (CV) curves were tested on CHI650e electrochemical workstation (Chenhua, China) with the scanning rate of 0.1 mV s -1 . The constant current charge-discharge tests were performed with a computer-controlled cycling equipment (Land CT2001A, China) in the potential rage of 0.01~3V. PNb9O25@CNTs and commercial LiNixCoyMn1-x-yO2 (333) were used as anode material and cathode material of full cell, respectively. The energy density (E) and power density (P) of full cell were calculated according to the following equations:</p><p>I is the current, V is the discharge voltage, t is the discharge time.</p><!><p>All the first-principles calculations were performed via the Vienna Ab-initio Simulation Package (VASP) [53][54][55][56] within the projector augmented wave (PAW) formalism 57 and the Perdew-Becke-Ernzerhof (PBE) approximation 58 to the exchange-correlation potential was employed. We used a plane wave basis with a cutoff energy of 520 eV and 𝚪-centered k-meshes with a density of 8000 kpoints per reciprocal atom. We search the intermediate intercalated phases through the Li-PNb9O25 reaction using the Non-Equilibrium Phase Search method (NEPS) [34][35][36] by exploring geometrically distinct Li/vacancy configurations on the stable insertion sites of the PNb9O25 structure (Figure 1) at different compositions (Li/vacancy ratios). The method proceeded as follows: i) identify all possible stable insertion sites in the original PNb9O25 structure; ii) generate all symmetrically distinct configurations with Enum 59,60 for a series of compositions Lix☐3−xPNb9O25 (0 < x < 20, ☐ denoting vacancy); iii) sample electrostatic total energies of all configurations; iv) rank the structures by the total energies for each specific stoichiometry, and calculate the formation energies by relaxing three lowest energy structures with accurate settings according to the reaction PNb9O25 + xLi → LixPNb9O25; v) construct the lithiation convex hull using the formation energies and determine the composition points on the hull as the intermediate phases. The average lithiation voltage (relative to Li/Li + ) was computed using the negative of the reaction free energy per Li added following the ground state convex hull (T = 0K) to form a series of constant voltage steps along the two-phase regions of the convex hull, which should be viewed as an approximation to the actual voltage profiles. At elevated temperatures (e.g., room temperature), the abrupt voltage drops become more rounded, due to entropic effects, which would be smoother when finite temperature effects are included. 61 To evaluate the Li-ion conductivity of PNb9O25, we created a 1×1×2 supercell and simulated the canonical (NVT) ensemble through a Nosé thermostat with a minimal Γ-centered 1×1×1 k-point grid. 62 In each run, velocity−Verlet was used for a time integration scheme with a step of 2 fs. Considering thermal expansion, we conducted a series of volume-varying picosecond runs at each target temperature.</p><p>Therefore, the volume of the supercell was determined, where the average pressure was approximately zero. When the MD simulations started, the Li-PNb9O25 systems were assigned an initial temperature of 100 K, and it was heated to target temperatures (600K -1800 K) in 2 ps and equilibrated for 5 ps.</p><p>We performed MD simulations to conduct the diffusion for 40 ps. In addition, Li-ion diffusivities at each target temperature were calculated by fitting the mean square displacement over time using the</p><p>Here, r(t) is the displacement of ions at time t and D was obtained by a linear fitting to the dependence of average mean square displacement over 2t.</p><!><p>Taking the advantage of the nanobattery setup reported in the previous articles. [63][64][65][66][67][68] The nanobattery system was built on the X-Nano TEM holder, which was developed by the Center for X-Mechanics, Zhejiang University. It consists a compact four-degree freedom (positioning in X, Y, Z-directions plus self-rotation) nano-manipulator and in-situ electrical biasing function. The PNb9O25 nanoparticles were loaded on the one side of the holder as working electrode, Li/Li2O was scratched on the other side of the X-Nano TEM holder, served as the counter electrode and the solid electrolyte.</p><p>The probe moving resolution can be accurately controlled by less than 1 nm. When the two electrodes contacted together, one negative bias was applied to drive the lithium ion insertion. While for the lithium extraction, a positive bias needed to be applied between these two electrodes.</p><!><p>Tab      (The energy density and power density of the literatures were also calculated based on the total mass of both cathode and anode materials)</p>