A simple organic metal salt thermal decomposition method to prepare LiFePO4@Ni to enhance the high rate performance

Abstract

The application of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) was still hindered by its poor high rate performance. Surface coating had proven to be an effective strategy to solve these problems. However, the previous surface coating method made the synthesis process more complicated. In this work, a simple organic salt decomposition method was developed to prepare LiFePO4@Ni cathode material (LFP@Ni). Scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS) confirmed that a uniform nickel-coated composite structure had been successfully constructed without changing the crystal structure. The charge and discharge test showed that after 200 cycles at 5C, LFP@Ni maintained a discharge specific capacity of 65.02% and the exchange current density was 1.3 times that of LFP. Compared with LFP and LFP-Ni, the composite cathode LFP@Ni had better cycle capacity. This improvement was attributed to the good conductivity of nickel, which can quickly conduct electrons in the LFP cathode material, thereby improving the dynamic performance of the LFP cathode material.