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Layered Ni-rich transition metal oxide materials are considered the most promising cathodes for use in commercial Li-ion batteries. Due to their instability in air, an impurity layer forms during storage under ambient conditions, and this layer increases electrochemical polarization during charging and discharging, which ultimately leads to a lower cycling capacity. In this work, we found that storage of the LiNi0.8Mn0.1Co0.1O2 (NMC 811) material in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) can restore the surface by reducing the amount of native carbonate species in the impurity layer. In this work, in situ soft X-ray ambient pressure photoelectron spectroscopy is used to directly follow the interaction between common gases found in air and the NMC 811 surface. During gas exposure of the NMC 811 surface to pure CO2, O2, and a mixture of both pure gases, surface-adsorbed CO2 or/and O2 were detected; however, permanent changes could not be identified under UHV after the gas exposure. In contrast, a permanent increase in metal hydroxide species was observed on the sample surface following H2O vapor exposure, and an increased intensity in the carboxylate peak was observed after exposure to a mixture of CO2/O2/H2O. Thus, the irreversible degradation reaction with CO2 is triggered in the presence of H2O (on relevant time scales defined by the experiment). Additional measurements revealed that X-ray irradiation induces the formation of metal carbonate species on the NMC 811 surface under CO2 and H2O vapor pressure.

SPECIES is an undulator-based soft X-ray beamline that replaced the old I511 beamline at the MAX II storage ring. SPECIES is aimed at high-resolution ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS), near-edge X-ray absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS), X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments. The beamline has two branches that use a common elliptically polarizing undulator and monochromator. The beam is switched between the two branches by changing the focusing optics after the monochromator. Both branches have separate exit slits, refocusing optics and dedicated permanent endstations. This allows very fast switching between two types of experiments and offers a unique combination of the surface-sensitive XPS and bulk-sensitive RIXS techniques both in UHV- and at elevated ambient-pressure conditions on a single beamline. Another unique property of the beamline is that it reaches energies down to approximately 27 eV, which is not obtainable on other current APXPS beamlines. This allows, for instance, valence band studies under ambient-pressure conditions. In this article the main properties and performance of the beamline are presented, together with selected showcase experiments performed on the new setup.

SPECIES is an undulator-based soft X-ray beamline that replaced the old I511 beamline at the MAX II storage ring. SPECIES is aimed at high-resolution ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS), near-edge X-ray absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS), X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments. The beamline has two branches that use a common elliptically polarizing undulator and monochromator. The beam is switched between the two branches by changing the focusing optics after the monochromator. Both branches have separate exit slits, refocusing optics and dedicated permanent endstations. This allows very fast switching between two types of experiments and offers a unique combination of the surface-sensitive XPS and bulk-sensitive RIXS techniques both in UHV and at elevated ambient-pressure conditions on a single beamline. Another unique property of the beamline is that it reaches energies down to approximately 27 eV, which is not obtainable on other current APXPS beamlines. This allows, for instance, valence band studies under ambient-pressure conditions. In this article the main properties and performance of the beamline are presented, together with selected showcase experiments performed on the new setup.