Preparation and characterization of core-shell battery materials for Li-ion batteries manufactured by substrate induced coagulation

In this work Substrate Induced Coagulation (SIC) was used to coat the cathode material LiCoO₂, commonly used in Li-ion batteries, with fine nano-sized particulate titania. Substrate Induced Coagulation is a self-assembled dip-coating process capable of coating different surfaces with fine particulate materials from liquid media. A SIC coating consists of thin and rinse-prove layers of solid particles. An advantage of this dip-coating method is that the method is easy and cheap and that the materials can be handled by standard lab equipment. Here, the SIC coating of titania on LiCoO₂ is followed by a solid-state reaction forming new inorganic layers and a core-shell material, while keeping the content of active battery material high. This titania based coating was designed to confine the reaction of extensively delithiated (charged) LiCoO₂ and the electrolyte. The core-shell materials were characterized by SEM, XPS, XRD and Rietveld analysis.