Probing the Structure and Evolution of Anode Materials in Thermal Batteries using In-Situ Diffraction

Thermal batteries are primary batteries which find use in applications such as emergency power supplies in aircraft. They are required to provide a constant power over a given length of time. These batteries contain air/mositure sensitive components and operate at high temperature, which has hindered studies to understand how these batteries work. Recent work in our group has probed the structure-property relationships in these batteries by carrying out combined electrochemical and diffraction studies on the Polaris diffractometer. However, several questions remain, all relating to the anode materials. Here we intend to probe the high temperature structure of several anode materials and then look at the structual evolution of the anode during battery discharge.