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Long-life lithium-ion batteries realized by low-Ni, Co-free cathode chemistry

Nature Energy volume 8, pages 695–702 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The increasing demand for lithium-ion battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) has led to a surge in recent prices of strategic battery materials such as cobalt (Co) and nickel (Ni). While all EV makers are eager to eliminate Co usage, Ni has rapidly become another ‘pain point’ for the industry, as its price is nearing half that of Co. The sustainability issue facing both Ni and Co puts forward a grand materials challenge, that is, to reduce Ni content and eliminate Co while maintaining high specific energy and stability. In this work, a complex concentrated doping strategy is used to eliminate Co in a commercial NMC-532 cathode. The LiNi0.5Mn0.43Ti0.02Mg0.02Nb0.01Mo0.02O2 cathode shows potential cost advantage with relatively high specific energy and significantly improved overall performance (~95% capacity retained after 1,000 cycles in pouch-type cells, 2.8–4.3 V vs graphite, at 1 C, 1.5 mA cm−2). Combining X-ray techniques and electron microscopy, we uncover the origins of the superior stability.

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Fig. 1: Structure and electrochemical properties of the HE-N50 cathode.
Fig. 2: Structural stability and volumetric change of the HE-N50 cathode during cycling.
Fig. 3: Thermal stability of HE-N50.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the published article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work is primarily supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under the award number DEEE0008444. R.Z.’s work done for this study was funded by H.L.X.’s start-up funding. This research used resources of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and 7-BM beamlines of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, which are two US DOE Office of Science User Facilities operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract number DE-SC0012704. This research used resources from the Advanced Photon Source, a US DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under contract number DE-AC02-06CH11357. R.L. was supported by the Assistant Secretary for EERE, Vehicle Technology Office of the US DOE through the Advanced Battery Materials Research (BMR) Program, under contract no. DE-SC0012704. We acknowledge the use of facilities and instrumentation at the University of California, Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI), which is supported in part by the National Science Foundation through the University of California, Irvine Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (DMR-2011967). We also acknowledge the electrode produced at the US DOE CAMP (Cell Analysis, Modeling and Prototyping) Facility, Argonne National Laboratory. The CAMP Facility is fully supported by the DOE Vehicle Technologies Office.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Rui Zhang, Chunyang Wang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Rui Zhang, Chunyang Wang, Peichao Zou & Huolin L. Xin

  2. Department of Chemistry, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Ruoqian Lin

  3. National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Lu Ma

  4. X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Tianyi Li, In-hui Hwang, Wenqian Xu & Chengjun Sun

  5. Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Steve Trask

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Contributions

H.L.X. conceived and directed the project. R.Z. synthesized the materials and performed the electrochemical experiments. C.W. and R.Z. performed the TEM experiments and data analyses. P.Z. performed the DSC experiments. T.L. and W.X. performed ex situ XRD experiments. R.L., C.S., I.-h.H. and L.M. performed XANES and EXAFS measurements. S.T. fabricated the anode using commercial graphite. R.Z., C.W. and H.L.X. wrote the paper with the help of all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huolin L. Xin.

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Competing interests

University of California, Irvine filed one provisional and three non-provisional patent applications based in part on this work (63044183, 17358460, 17508540, 17508540).

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Table 1, Figs. 1–13, Discussion and Reference.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Cycling data in Fig. 1e–i.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data in Fig. 2f,g.

Source Data Fig. 3

Cycling data in Fig. 3f.

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Zhang, R., Wang, C., Zou, P. et al. Long-life lithium-ion batteries realized by low-Ni, Co-free cathode chemistry. Nat Energy 8, 695–702 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01267-y

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