A facile ball milling-spray drying strategy enabling single-crystal cathode material elevated rate and cycling performance

• Published in: Journal of energy storage 2024-11, Vol.102, p.114174, Article 114174
• Main Authors: Zheng, Shuosi, Tang, Renheng, Zhou, Qing, Zeng, Liming, Wang, Ying, Deng, Yong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ball milling-spray drying method; High temperature solid phase method; High‑nickel ternary positive materials; Single crystal
• ISSN: 2352-152X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.est.2024.114174

For single-crystal high‑nickel ternary materials, the expansion/contraction of the lattice volume of in the process of de-/lithiation is isotropic, which can slow down the generation of microcracks in the particles and ensure the stability of the material structure to achieve excellent electrochemical performance, but the larger single-crystal particles make the diffusion path of lithium ions inside the grains longer, which restricts the diffusion dynamics of lithium ions, and directly affects the electrochemical performance of the material. In order to tackle this problem, a pretreatment strategy involving ball milling and spray drying is proposed to reduce the precursor particle size and tune its morphology in this work, in which the commercial precursor Ni0.83Co0.11Mn0.06(OH)2 was chosen as the model precursor. The results show the as-obtained single-crystal material LiNi0.83Co0.11Mn0.06O2 (SNCM-4) is endowed with good dispersion of primary particle. And the first discharge capacity and first charge/discharge efficiency of SNCM-4 are significantly improved as compared to the control (SNCM-0) at 0.2C. The capacity retention rate reaches 87.31 % and show good rate performance with a discharge capacity of 145.56 mAh g−1 at 10C. The two-step strategy offers a feasible way to construct high-performance high‑nickel single-crystal cathode material. •A ball-milling and spray-drying strategy is proposed to obtain highly-dispersed single-crystal cathode material.•SNCM-4 exhibits superior rate and cycling performance from 2.8 V to 4.5 V.•SNCM-4 delivers notably enhanced Li+ diffusion rate as compared to the counterpart.