Publications

Journal articles

September 2021

Electrochemical Fluoridation of Manganese Oxide by Perfluorinated‐Gas Conversion for Lithium‐Ion Cathodes

Haining Gao, Mingfu He, Rui Guo, Betar M. Gallant

Abstract

Fluoridation of Lithium‐ion (Li‐ion) cathodes is of growing interest for high‐capacity Li + storage materials, but well‐controlled fluoridation processes are elusive. We investigated an electrochemical methodology to grow lithium fluoride (LiF) by reduction of perfluorinated gas onto metal oxides (MO), which then forms M−O−F by splitting of LiF upon charge, using MnO as an example target phase. Unlike current methods where particle size <10 nm is necessary for high MnO utilization (subsequent discharge/lithiation capacity), owing to the nano‐crystallinity and intimate contact of electrochemically‐grown LiF, high MnO utilization (∼0.9 e − /MnO, 340 mAh g MnO −1 ) is achieved with large MnO particle size (∼400 nm), exceeding comparable MnO/LiF systems reported to date. Additionally, incorporation of perfluorinated‐gas additive benefits cycling, with capacity of ∼270 mAh g MnO −1 retained after 20 cycles. This work demonstrates the opportunity for electrochemically driven fluoridation to achieve high capacities with larger particle sizes needed to bring oxyfluorides closer to practical reality.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Army Research Office under award number W911NF‐19‐1‐0311 and from the MIT Energy Initiative Energy Storage Center. This work made use of the MRSEC Shared Experimental Facilities at MIT, supported by the National Science Foundation under award number DMR‐14‐19807.

Research Areas
MITEI Author
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering

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