Abstract
Disordered rocksalt (DRX) materials have recently emerged as a promising class of cobalt-free high-capacity cathodes. However, due to their poor electronic conductivity, they require a high carbon content in the composite cathodes (20-30 wt%) to achieve their full potential, which has a detrimental effect on its cell-level energy density. To assess strategies to mitigate this issue, this study investigates the effect of three types of carbon (Super C65, synthetic graphite, and ketjenblack; chosen based on varying physical properties) and their loadings (10-20 wt%) on the electrochemical performance of DRX cathodes (Patil et al., 2023). Overall, DRX cathodes containing graphite additive demonstrated superior cycling performance (∼260 mA h/g with 85% capacity retention after 50 cycles) and rate capability (∼135 mA h/g at 1000 mA/g) when compared to the traditional carbon blacks. Using a variety of characterization methods such as surface area estimation using BET method, transmission electron microscopy, inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and differential electrochemical mass spectrometry, the superior performance of graphite based DRX cathodes is largely attributed to (i) protection of DRX particle surfaces from parasitic reactions owing to a conformal graphitic coating (ii) homogenous distribution of graphite and DRX in the composite electrode providing a robust electronic network. This study provides important insights into how carbon microstructure and processing influences performance of DRX cathodes and paves the path for further development towards reduction of carbon content in composite DRX cathodes.Reference:Patil, S., Koirala, K.P., Crafton, M.J., Yang, G., Tsai, W.-Y., McCloskey, B.D., Wang, C., Nanda, J., Self, E.C., 2023. Enhanced Electrochemical Performance of Disordered Rocksalt Cathodes Enabled by a Graphite Conductive Additive. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 15, 39253–39264. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c05619
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