Improved Cycling Stability and Fast Charge-Discharge Performance of Cobalt-Free Lithium-Rich Oxides by Magnesium-Doping.

Layered Li-rich, Co-free, and Mn-based cathode material, LiNiMnMgO (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.05), was successfully synthesized by a coprecipitation method. All prepared samples have typical Li-rich layered structure, and Mg has been doped in the LiNiMnO material successfully and homogeneously. The morphology and the grain size of all material are not changed by Mg doping. All materials have a estimated size of about 200 nm with a narrow particle size distribution. The electrochemical property results show that LiNiMnMgO (x = 0.01 and 0.02) electrodes exhibit higher rate capability than that of the pristine one. LiNiMnMgO (x = 0.02) indicates the largest reversible capacity of 148.3 mAh g and best cycling stability (capacity retention of 95.1%) after 100 cycles at 2C charge-discharge rate. LiNiMnMgO (x = 0.02) also shows the largest discharge capacity of 149.2 mAh g discharged at 1C rate at elevated temperature (55 °C) after 50 cycles. The improved electrochemical performances may be attributed to the decreased polarization, reduced charge transfer resistance, enhanced the reversibility of Li ion insertion/extraction, and increased lithium ion diffusion coefficient. This promising result gives a new understanding for designing the structure and improving the electrochemical performance of Li-rich cathode materials for the next-generation lithium-ion battery with high rate cycling performance.