Coupled polaronic and ion transport in nanocrystalline metal oxide electrodes

We report new computational methods and fundamental understanding in the dynamics of coupled charge and ion transport in nanoscale metal oxides. The methods attack the multi-scale problem of simulating the collective diffusivities of ions and charge compensating e-/h+ carriers in single crystal particles, across particle-particle grain boundaries, and through networks of grains for select systems. Methods include embedded quantum mechanical clusters at the DFT and MP2 levels of theory for atomic-scale polaronic and ion transport kinetics, classical DFT-based free energy calculations for grain-scale conductivity in the framework of the Poisson-Nernst-Planck formalism, and phase field simulation of charged particle diffusivity for conductivity at the grain network scale. This combination of approaches is one of a kind in terms of its multi-scale range, scaling, and computational efficiency. We are presently focused on coupled electron and Li+ ion transport in polymorphs of TiO2, and also in mixed valence spinel oxides, for electrode conductivity optimization and improving energy storage materials performance for Li+ batteries.