Preparation and cycle performance at high temperature for Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 coated with LiFePO4

Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 coated with LiFePO4 was synthesized by a co-precipitation method. It consisted of the parent Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 as the core and the LiFePO4 as the coating material, with an average particle diameter of 500 nm. The LiFePO4-coated Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 showed no large initial capacity drop in the first cycle, which generally occurred with cathode materials bearing inactive coating layers such as Al2O3, ZnO, and MgO. Furthermore, it presented a remarkably improved cycle retention rate of over 89% until 400 cycles at 50 °C. We suggest that the LiFePO4 coating technique is a very effective tool to improve the cycle performance of Li[Ni0.5Co0.2Mn0.3]O2 at high temperatures.