Lithium-ion battery is currently the most widely used a battery, it has a large energy density, low self-discharge rate, high electric potential difference. Lithium ion battery has realized the application in many areas, such as mobile phone, electric vehicles, satellite, spaceship, underwater robots, etc. However, lithium electron is not without faults, the power density, service life, etc, there is still room for improvement.

 

Lithium battery in the process of circulation, impurities will accumulate in the rich nickel battery cathode. And although nickel is the key to the lithium battery energy density, but its instability. It's easy to cause during the first charge and discharge cycle, nickel cathode surface impurities, which in turn make a battery storage capacity to reduce 10% to 18%.

 

In addition, the nickel on the surface of cathode structure under the instability, with the passage of time, will start to reduce the storage capacity of the battery. So the lithium battery after long time use, the battery life tend to be markedly reduced.

 

As the cathode material of a candidate, a 811 called the NMC nickel cobalt manganese material has great potential for development. So, state university of New York at binghamton, doe and oak ridge national laboratory researchers on the NMC 811 a number of chemical research, hope it can effectively inhibit the cathode of instability.

 

The researchers by X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques to explore the internal mechanism of the material. The results show that the neutron can easily penetrate the cathode material, reveal the niobium and the location of the lithium atoms, this is a chance to further understand the modified process of niobium.

 

And neutron scattering data show that niobium atomic stable surface, reduce the loss of the first cycle, and at a higher temperature, niobium atom replaced the cathode materials inside some of the deeper manganese atoms, improve the capacity to keep for a long time. Through this nickel cobalt manganese material, in the first charge cycle, lithium battery capacity loss decreased significantly.

 

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It is worth mentioning that the material also provides a longer using performance, 250 charging cycle capacity retention rate of 93. 2%. Application in high density storage priority cases, such as in the field of electric transportation, this feature will play a greater advantage.

 

In addition, the electrochemical properties and structural stability for the NMC 811 more have a chance to become a candidate of the cathode materials, can be used in the application of higher energy density, such as electric cars. In the future, to combine with niobium niobium coating atoms, alternative manganese atoms, is likely to be increasing the initial capacity and long-term capacity of lithium battery is an effective means of retention.