Performance and Stability Improvement of Layered NCM Lithium-Ion Batteries at High Voltage by a Microporous Al2O3 Sol-Gel Coating

Yingqiang Wu; Mengliu Li; Wandi Wahyudi; Guan Sheng; Xiaohe Miao; Thomas D Anthopoulos; Kuo-Wei Huang; Yangxing Li; Zhiping Lai

doi:10.1021/acsomega.9b01706

Performance and Stability Improvement of Layered NCM Lithium-Ion Batteries at High Voltage by a Microporous Al₂O₃ Sol-Gel Coating

ACS Omega. 2019 Aug 19;4(9):13972-13980. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01706. eCollection 2019 Aug 27.

Authors

Yingqiang Wu¹, Mengliu Li¹, Wandi Wahyudi¹, Guan Sheng¹, Xiaohe Miao², Thomas D Anthopoulos¹, Kuo-Wei Huang¹, Yangxing Li³, Zhiping Lai¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
² Core Labs, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
³ Watt Research Lab, Central Research Institute, Huawei Technologies Company Limited, Bantian, Longgang District, Shenzhen 518129, China.

Abstract

A simple and low-cost polymer-aided sol-gel method was developed to prepare γ-Al₂O₃ protective layers for LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂ (NCM622) cathode materials. The selected polyvinyl alcohol polymer additive not only facilitates the formation of a uniform and thin γ-Al₂O₃ layer on the irregular and rough cathode particle surface to protect it from corrosion but also serves as a pore-forming agent to generate micropores in the film after sintering to allow fast transport of lithium ions, which guaranteed the excellent and stable battery performance at high working voltage. Detailed studies in the full battery mode showed that the leached corrosion species from the cathode had a more profound harmful effect to the graphite anode, which seemed to be the dominating factor that caused the battery performance decay.