The Synthesis and Electrochemical Performance of Microspherical Porous LiFePO4/C with High Tap Density

Over the past few years, LiFePO4 has been actively studied as a cathode material for lithium-ion batteries because of its advantageous properties such as high theoretical capacity, good cycle life, and high thermal stability. However, it does not have a very good power capability owing to the low lithium-ion diffusivity and poor electronic conductivity. Reduction in particle size of LiFePO4 to the scale of nanometers has been found to dramatically enhance the above properties, according to many earlier reports. However, because of the intrinsically low tap density of nanomaterials, it is difficult to commercialize this method. Many studies are being carried out to improve the volumetric energy density of this material and many methods have been reported so far. This paper provides a brief summary of the synthesis methods and electrochemical performances of microspherical LiFePO4 having high volumetric energy density.