To evaluate the effect of LPO coating on the electrochemical performance of NCM9064 cathode, charge and discharge measurements were enforced in half-cells under 25 and 45 ℃. As shown in
Fig. 2a and Table S2 (Supporting information), the initial discharge capacities at 0.1 C (1 C = 200 mAh/g) are 220.2, 213.9, 208.4 and 202.3 mAh/g with the initial coulombic efficiencies (ICEs) of 78.9%, 87.0%, 84.1% and 83.7% for ALD-LPO-0, ALD-LPO-20, ALD-LPO-80 and ALD-LPO-140, respectively. After LPO coating, the electrode shows much improved ICE. In addition, too many LPO layer would lead to a slight decline in initial discharge capacities due to electrochemically inert property of LPO.
Fig. 2b shows the cycle performance of as-prepared sample at 25 ℃. The initial capacities of ALD-LPO-0, ALD-LPO-20, ALD-LPO-80 and ALD-LPO-140 at 1 C are 202.1, 201.6, 192.8 and 184.2 mAh/g, respectively. Their discharge specific capacities after 200 cycles are separately 127.9, 161.4, 158.5 and 145.3 mAh/g, corresponding to the capacity retentions of 63%, 81%, 82% and 79%. Particularly, compared with the uncoated material, the discharge specific capacity of the ALD-LPO-20 material after 200 cycles is increased by 33 mAh/g, and the cycle retention is improved by 18%. It is noted that when the ALD-LPO-140 shows much enlarged polarization, which may be because of the residual organic by-products on the surface of electrode. When performed at elevated temperature (45 ℃), the samples all show much improved reversible capacities at both 0.1 and 1 C rates (
Figs. 2c and
d, Table S3 in Supporting information) while decay faster as compared to those at room temperature (25 ℃). Particularly, ALD-LPO-0, ALD-LPO-20, ALD-LPO-80 and ALD-LPO-140 exhibit 212.8, 218.5, 218.5 and 209.2 mAh/g at 1 C rate and maintain capacity retention of 67%, 72%, 79% and 70%, respectively after 100 cycles. Note that, with the increase of deposition layers, the capacity retention shows a trend of firstly increasing and then decreasing. Therefore, the coating layer can neither be too thin nor too thick. Coating layers is too thin to protect the material well. If the number of coating layers is too thick, the specific discharge capacity will be sacrificed. Therefore, it is necessary to find a balance between the discharge capacity and the capacity retention, and to optimize the number of coating layers. It can be concluded that the ALD-LPO-80 shows the best comprehensive cycling performance. When cycling at high temperature, more intense side reactions occur at the interface between the cathodes and the electrolyte [
35]. Moreover, Ni
4+ at high de-lithiation state results in oxygen release, causing poor thermal stability of the material [
36]. Therefore, compared with room temperature, thicker coating layer is needed to slow down the side reactions at the interface. Rate performance of samples (Fig. S5 in Supporting information) indicates that all samples show decay trend as the current density increases. However, the attenuation trend of ALD-LPO-80 and ALD-LPO-140 is larger while that of ALD-LPO-20 is smaller compared with that of ALD-LPO-0. Particularly, ALD-LPO-20 can still deliver a higher capacity of 174.6 mAh/g at 5 C, which is 7.0 mAh/g larger than that of ALD-LPO-0. This is because the appropriate coating layer not only does not hinder the migration of lithium ions in the charging and discharging process under high current density, but also well protect the cathode/electrolyte interface and reduce the occurrence of side reactions.