Intercalation Voltage and Lithium Ion Conduction in Lithium Cobalt Oxide Cathode for Lithium Ion Battery

We performed a density functional theory study to investigate the intercalation voltage and lithium ion conduction in lithium cobalt oxide for lithium ion battery as a function of the lithium concentration. There were two methods for the intercalation of lithium ions; the intercalation of a lithium ion at a time in the individual layer and the intercalation of lithium ions in all the sites of one layer after all the sites of another layer. The average intercalation voltage was the same value, 3.48 V. However, we found the former method was more favorable than the latter method. The lattice parameter c was increased as the increase of the lithium concentration in the range of x < 0.25 while it was decreased as increase of the lithium concentration in the range of x > 0.25. The energy barrier for the conduction of lithium ion in lithium cobalt oxide was increased as the lithium concentration was increased. We demonstrated that the decrease of the intercalation voltage and increase of the energy barrier as the increase of the lithium concentration caused lower output voltage during the discharge of the lithium ion battery.