Recently, Professors Jiang Hao from the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Li Chunzhong from the School of Chemical Engineering at East China University of Science and Technology have made new progress in the rational design and innovative preparation of nickel-rich single-crystal ternary cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, providing theoretical guidance and technical support for the design and synthesis of high-specific-energy single-crystal nickel-rich ternary cathode materials with excellent cycling stability. The related research has been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Single-crystal nickel-rich ternary cathode materials have prominent advantages in terms of compact density and safety performance, making them the preferred choice for next-generation all-solid-state battery cathode materials. Predicting their optimal particle size and obtaining experimental validation are of great significance.
Taking LiNi0.83Co0.12Mn0.05O2 (NCM83) cathode material as an example, the research team dynamically quantitatively described the stress distribution of single-crystal particles through theoretical analysis and modeling, clarified the dynamic relationship between stress and particle size, established the relationship curve between fracture energy and surface energy with particle size variation, and theoretically predicted the long-life large single-crystal particle size, indicating that the optimal particle size of NCM83 is 3.7 micrometers. Furthermore, based on the Ostwald ripening law, the researchers established the relationship between temperature, particle size, and calcination time, developed a new method for precise control of high-quality single-crystal particle size through high-temperature short-time pulse lithiation technology, and successfully synthesized NCM83 single-crystal particles with a particle size of 3.7 micrometers. The stress distribution is more uniform, and after 1000 cycles of full-cell cycling, the capacity retention rate reaches 88.1%.
The key issues, solution approaches, and experimental results images of single-crystal-rich nickel ternary cathode materials are sourced from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Related paper information: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2317282121
