(791a) Nanomaterials Enabled Lithium Chemistry for Advanced Rechargeable Batteries

Employment of nanomaterials in electrode assembly is promising for the development of advanced lithium-ion batteries.  Nanostructured electrodes can potentially achiever higher power and better cyclability than their bulk counterparts, due to the facilitated charge transfer at electrode/electrolyte interface, electronic/ionic transport in the electrodes, and accommodation of strain during lithium insertion/extraction by reduction of material dimensions.  Moreover, design of electrodes based on nanomaterials can enable new lithium insertion/extraction reactions that are not possible with bulk materials, and thereby expand our scope of material choices for energy storage.  These advantages have lead to substantial literature effort on the synthesis of electrochemically active nanomaterials for battery applications.

Here we report the development of novel manganese oxide nanoparticles (10 - 100 nm) by organic solution synthesis and their solid chemical conversion into lithium manganese oxide (Li_xMn₂O₄) spinels for cathode application in lithium ion batteries.  We managed to demonstrate that by reducing the material dimensions to nanoscale, charge/discharge up to 0<x<2 can be achieved which however is not possible for conventional bulk or microscale materials (with only 0<x<1).  Our work shows the promise of expanding the scope of material choices for energy storage by size scaling and the great of potential of improving battery performnace by employing advanced nanomaterials.