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Coupling effect of the conductivities of Li ions and electrons by introducing LLTO@C fibers in the LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 cathode

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Abstract

To probe the coupling effect of the electron and Li ion conductivities in Ni-rich layered materials (LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2, NCA), lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO) nanofiber and carbon-coated LLTO fiber (LLTO@C) materials were introduced to polyvinylidene difluoride in a cathode. The enhancement of the conductivity was indicated by the suppressed impedance and polarization. At 1 and 5 C, the cathodes with coupling conductive paths had a more stable cycling performance. The coupling mechanism was analyzed based on the chemical state and structure evolution of NCA after cycling for 200 cycles at 5 C. In the pristine cathode, the propagation of lattice damaged regions, which consist of high-density edge-dislocation walls, destroyed the bulk integrity of NCA. In addition, the formation of a rock-salt phase on the surface of NCA caused a capacity loss. In contrast, in the LLTO@C modified cathode, although the formation of dislocation-driven atomic lattice broken regions and cation mixing occurred, they were limited to a scale of several atoms, which retarded the generation of the rock-salt phase and resulted in a pre-eminent capacity retention. Only NiO phase “pitting” occurred. A mechanism based on the synergistic transport of Li ions and electrons was proposed.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51571182 and 51001091), the Fundamental Research Program from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2014CB931704), the Program for Innovative Research Team (in Science and Technology) in University of Henan Province (No. 21IRTSTHN003). This work was also partially supported by the Provincial Scientific Research Program of Henan (No. 182102310815).

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Wang, Hy., Cheng, X., Li, Xf. et al. Coupling effect of the conductivities of Li ions and electrons by introducing LLTO@C fibers in the LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 cathode. Int J Miner Metall Mater 28, 305–316 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12613-020-2145-6

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