Abstract
The characterization of carbon nanofiber 3D nonwovens, prepared by electrospinning process, coated with olivine structured lithium iron phosphate is reported. The LiFePO4 as cathode material for lithium ion batteries was prepared by a Pechini-assisted reversed polyol process. The coating has been successfully performed on carbon nanofiber 3D nonwovens by soaking in aqueous solution containing lithium, iron salts and phosphates at 70 °C for 2−4 h. After drying-out, the composites were annealed at 600 °C for 5 h under nitrogen. The surface investigation of the prepared composites showed a uniform coating of the carbon nonwoven nanofibers as well as the formation of cauliflower-like crystalline structures which are uniformly distributed all over the surface area of the carbon nanofibers. The electrochemical measurements on the composites showed good performances delivering a discharge specific capacity of 156 mAhg− 1 at a discharging rate of C/25 and 152 mAhg− 1 at a discharging rate of C/10 at room temperature.
Highlights
New phosphate based cathode materials LiMPO4 are considered to be strong candidates for use in advanced Li-ion batteries
The nanofibers are fairly uniform in length and diameter, some of them can appear brighter due to the electron-induced charging. Due to their high surface area they can be used as suitable substrate for the deposition of LiFePO4 by using a simple solgel process
After rinsing with water the composite was annealed under nitrogen atmosphere at 600 °C for 5 h to form the LiFePO4 phase as layer on the carbon nanofibers
Summary
The development of advanced electrodes for Li-ion batteries may benefit from porous structures of carbon made by electrospinning which is a simple and straightforward method of producing nonwoven mats of polymer nanofibers [9, 10]. The additional surface of the carbon nanofibers offered an efficient method for increasing the interfacial area and decreasing the lithium ion diffusion distance. The latter allowed a fast charge transport and improved power capability (the specific capacity of 120mAhg-1 at a charge rate of 0.1C) compared to the acetylene black added LiFePO4 even though the coating was not homogeneous. The electrochemical performances are discussed in relation to the structural and morphological investigation
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