Nickel and Cobalt Free Li-Mn-O Cathodes for Lithium-ion Battery

Authors: Omar Faruk, Hui Zhou

Field of Study: Materials Science and Engineering

Program Affiliation: The NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage

Faculty Mentors: Stanley Whittingham

Easel: 70

Timeslot: Afternoon

Abstract: A low-temperature, cost-effective, and sustainable method has been explored to synthesize Ni and Co-free layered Li-Mn-O cathodes. The layered Li-Mn-O cathode transforms into disordered spinel upon heating above 300 °C. The materials delivered an initial discharge capacity of > 200 mAh·g⁻¹ within a voltage range of 2.00-4.10 V, even at high current densities. Among the tested samples, the layered material post-heated at 300 °C was able to retain more than 70% of the initial capacity after 150 cycles, without undergoing any phase transformation in contrast to samples with disordered spinel. Unlike the commercial spinel cathodes, the disordered spinel cathodes prepared by post-heating at 450 °C exhibited better cycling stability with more than 85% of the capacity retention after 150 cycles. When the upper cut-off voltage is reduced to 3.8 V, this disordered spinel can be cycled more than 1000 times without any additional capacity loss.