(139f) Multicomponent Metal-Oxide Particles with Tailored Compositions for Advanced Lithium-Ion Battery Cathode Materials

The increased demand for safer and higher energy density lithium-ion batteries designed to power electric vehicles has led to increased efforts in the search for new electrode materials. Some of these new electrode materials are composed of multiple chemical species, in an attempt to blend the desirable properties of different materials. To this end, we have developed a model which enables the tailored synthesis of particles during a co-precipitation process. The final particles are transition metal oxides containing nickel and manganese. The composition of individual particles was controlled to provide different relative compositions of the transition metals at both the particle interiors and at the surfaces of the particles. A variety of material compositions were produced, and the electrochemical and safety performance were evaluated in lithium-ion cells that contained the particles as the electrochemically active materials. The electrochemical and safety performance of the battery electrodes were found to be dependent on the pre-defined compositions of the individual metal oxide particles.