Improvement of cycling performance of Li1.1Mn1.9O4 at 60 °C by NiO addition for Li-ion secondary batteries

We report on electrochemical properties of NiO-blended spinel Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ at elevated temperature (60 °C). Thus, we employed two kinds of NiO powders, those are, larger particle size (>10 μm) and submicron-sized NiO powders obtained by a ball-milling. These NiO powders were blended to the spinel Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ as an additive for fabrication of cathode. The resulting discharge capacity for the larger NiO particle-blended Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ had similar electrochemical properties to the bare Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄. On the other hand, submicron-sized NiO-blended Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ brought about slightly increased capacity and excellent capacity retention, maintaining its initial capacity of 99.2% at 25 °C and 94% at 60 °C when Li metal was employed as the anode. In Li-ion cell using graphite as the anode, the capacity retention was of about 80% during cycling at 60 °C, whereas C/Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ cell retained around 68% of its initial capacity. Such improved properties would be ascribed to the HF scavenging into the electrolyte by presence of the submicron-sized NiO particles in Li_1.1Mn_1.9O₄ cathode.