Promising Candidates for Lithium Ion Batteries: High Nickel Lithium-Rich Layered Cathode Nanomaterial

Received: 17-Oct-2017 Accepted Date: Oct 18, 2017; Published: 26-Oct-2017

Citation: Weiguo Chu. Promising Candidates for Lithium Ion Batteries: High Nickel Lithium-Rich Layered Cathode Nanomaterial. Nanotechnology Letters. October-2017;1(1):4.

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Over the past decade, much attention has been paid to the development of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) owing to the increasing demand for power sources with higher energy and power density. LiCoO2 has been one of the most widely used cathode materials for its easy synthesis and excellent reversibility since the commercialization of LIBs. However, LiCoO2 also suffers from many drawbacks such as high cost, toxicity and relatively low practical capacity (about 140 mAh g-1, around half of its theoretical capacity), which limits its extensive application [1,2]. Therefore, new types of alternative materials are quite urgent as far as practical applications are concerned. Recently, layered lithium nickel manganese oxides, LiNixMn1-xO2 crystallizing in the O3 structure same as LiCoO2 (space group Rm) have been extensively investigated and can be considered as the alternative material for the commercialized LiCoO2 [3-6]. However, the work regarding LiNixMn1-xO2 is predominantly concerned with the Mn-rich type which normally shows relatively low discharge capacity and voltage.

Another type of compound with excess Li, Li-rich layered cathodes formulated as Li1+xM1−xO2 (M = Mn, Ni, and/or Co) receive increasing attention due to high specific capacity (~280 mAh/g) and energy density (~1000 Wh/kg) [7-11]. Most of them are focused on the cathodes with high manganese contents which however show relatively low discharge voltages compared to the conventional LiCoO2 [12]. Furthermore, Mnrich Li1+xM1−xO2 compounds are normally faced with serious voltage fade issue, making it very hard to be commercialized. Recently, it is found that increasing the Ni content in Li1+xM1−xO2 could suppress discharge voltage fade and simultaneously enhance the cyclic performance significantly [13]. The increase of Ni content can increase both the capacity and voltage but may enhance the occupation of Ni at the Li lattice site and thus lead to the sluggish kinetics of Li+ transport [14]. Fortunately, the excess Li is found to suppress the occupation of Ni at the Li site effectively which is expected to favor the performance of Li1+xM1−xO2 [14,15].

Therefore, the incorporation of excess Li and high Ni is anticipated to probably make Li1+xM1−xO2 perform well. Although little is known about the high Nickel Li-rich Li1+xM1−xO2 some groups have successfully synthesized the single phase high Nickel Li-rich Li1+xM1−xO2 [14,16,17]. Li et al. reported on the successful synthesis of Li1+x(NiyMn1−y)1−xO2 (y=0.2, 0.33, 0.4, 0.5 0.6, and 0.7, 0 ≤ × ≤ 0.34) with the discharge capacity of about 200 mAh/g [16]. The Ti additive is found to be capable of enhancing the cyclic performance of Li1.167Ni0.4Mn0.383Co0.05O2 effectively [17]. Again, the lithium-rich high nickel core shell structures comprised of nanoparticles were reported to have the discharge capacities around 220 mAh/g and the fairly good cycle performances [14]. However, despite the high capacity and high discharge voltage the lithium-rich high nickel layered cathode tends to cause the decomposition of electrolyte due to the possible catalyzing effect of nickel ions with high content.

To sum up, the high Nickel-Lithium rich layered cathode has the high capacity and high discharge voltage which is very promising as candidates for next generation LIBs although it may lead to the possible decomposition of electrolyte. However, its performance is believed to be improved by alien element doping, nanostructure design and surface coating as already done for other cathode materials.

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