Government of the United States of America - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Abstract
A novel nanoscale phase separation process has been discovered to promote the growth and segregation of single-crystal NMC811. This process occurs directly during high-temperature calcination without significant agglomeration. The key lies in converting transition metal hydroxide (TM(OH)2) precursors with well-controlled morphology into transition metal oxide (TMO) intermediates before reacting them with lithium salt. The nanoscale redistribution of Ni in TMO, resulting from the concurrent formation of spinel and rock salt phases, helps to deagglomerate the clusters of later-formed NMC811 crystals. The as-prepared single-crystal NMC811 is further validated in a 2Ah pouch cell, demonstrating 1,000 stable cycles. The fundamentally new reaction mechanism of single-crystal growth and segregation provides a new direction for large-scale synthesis of a broad range of single crystals for advanced energy storage.
Keywords: Single crystal, Phase, Nickel-rich, Cathode, Lithium-ion battery
Bi, Yujing and Xu, Yaobin and Yi, Ran and Liu, Dianying and Zuo, Peng and Hu, Jiangtao and Li, Qiuyan and Wu, Jing and Wang, Chongmin and Tan, Sha and Hu, Enyuan and Li, Jingnan and O’Toole, Rebecca and Luo, Liu and Hao, Xiaoguang and Venkatachalam, Subramanian and Rijssenbeek, Job and Xiao, Jie, Simultaneous Single Crystal Growth and Segregation of Ni-Rich Cathode Enabled by Nanoscale Phase Separation for Advanced Lithium-Ion Batteries. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4499331 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4499331
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