Highly activated oxygen redox enabling large-capacity Li-rich layered manganese-based oxide cathodes

Abstract

Li-rich Mn-based layered materials are considered the most promising next-generation high-energy-density cathode materials due to their high capacity, but their large irreversible capacity loss and severe voltage attenuation hinder their practical application. The limited operating voltage also makes it difficult to satisfy the increasing demand of high energy density in future applications. Inspired by the high voltage platform of Ni-rich LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂, we design and prepare a Li_1.2Ni_0.32Co_0.04Mn_0.44O₂ (LLMO811) cathode material with increased Ni content via the acrylic acid polymerization method and regulate the amounts of excess lithium of LLMO. It is found that LLMO-L3 with 3% excess lithium has the highest initial discharge capacity of 250 mA h g⁻¹ with a coulombic efficiency of 83.8%. Taking advantage of a high operating voltage of about 3.75 V, the material achieves an impressive high energy density of 947 W h kg⁻¹. Moreover, the capacity at 1C reaches 193.2 mA h g⁻¹, which is higher than that of ordinary LLMO811. This large capacity is attributed to the highly reversible O redox reaction, and the strategy used to achieve this would throw some light on the exploration of high-energy-density cathodes.