Further Improving Coulombic Efficiency and Discharge Capacity in LiNiO2 Material by Activating Sluggish ∼3.5 V Discharge Reaction

The electrochemical activity of LiNiO2 at the initial cycle and factors affecting its activity were understood. Even though LiNiO2 can achieve almost theoretical charge capacity, it cannot deliver the theoretical discharge capacity that would result in low 1st Coulombic efficiency (CE). For different upper cut-off voltages at 4.3 and 4.1 V, the 1st CE barely increases. Given that the H2-H3 phase transition occurs at similar to 4.2 V, the low 1st CE is not caused by this phase transition but is a result of the additional 3.5 V discharge reaction, which is kinetically limited and thereby not activated even at a reasonable current density. We found out that the several phase transitions during charge/discharge in LiNiO2 barely affect the 3.5 V reaction. Under galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT) conditions, LiNiO2 can achieve similar to 250 mAh/g of discharge capacity and 100% CE even with the 4.3 V cut-off voltage by fully activating the 3.5 V reaction. Using neutron diffraction and Li-6 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements, the sluggish kinetics of the 3.5 V reaction can be ascribed to difficult insertion of Li at the end of the discharge because this reaction can be accompanied by the rearrangement of cations or local structure change in the structure. To achieve high discharge capacity in LiNiO2 with the 4.3 V cut-off voltage, this 3.5 V sluggish reaction should be improved. The finding and understanding underlying the mechanism of the electrochemical activity will stimulate further research on high-capacity Ni-rich layered materials for high-performance Li-ion batteries.