Effect of Secondary Heat Treatment after a Washing on the Electrochemical Performance of Co-Free LiNi0.975 Al0.025 O2 Cathodes for Li-Ion Batteries.

The steadily growing electric vehicle market is a driving force in low-cost, high-energy-density lithium-ion battery development. To meet this demand, LiNi0.975 Al0.025 O2 (LNA), a high-energy-density and cobalt-free cathode material, has been developed using a low-cost and efficient co-precipitation and lithiation process. This article explores how further processing (i.e., washing residual lithium from the secondary particle surface and applying a secondary heat treatment at 650 °C) changes the chemical environment of the surface and the electrochemical performance of the LNA cathode material. After washing, a nonconductive nickel oxide (NiO) phase is formed on the surface, decreasing the initial capacity in electrochemical tests, and suppressing high-voltage (H2) to (H3) phase transition results in enhanced cycle properties. Furthermore, the secondary heat treatment re-lithiates surface NiO back to LNAand increases the initial capacity with enhanced cycle properties. Electrochemical tests are performed with the cells without tap charge to suppress the H2 to H3 phase transition. Results reveal that avoiding charging cells at a high voltage for a long time dramatically improves LNA's cycle life. In addition, the gas analysis tests performed during charge and discharge to reveal how the amount of residual lithium compounds on the surface affects gas formation are studied.

Clathrate Structure Determination by Combining Crystal Structure Prediction with Computational and Experimental 129 Xe NMR Spectroscopy.

An approach is presented for the structure determination of clathrates using NMR spectroscopy of enclathrated xenon to select from a set of predicted crystal structures. Crystal structure prediction methods have been used to generate an ensemble of putative structures of o- and m-fluorophenol, whose previously unknown clathrate structures have been studied by 129 Xe NMR spectroscopy. The high sensitivity of the 129 Xe chemical shift tensor to the chemical environment and shape of the crystalline cavity makes it ideal as a probe for porous materials. The experimental powder NMR spectra can be used to directly confirm or reject hypothetical crystal structures generated by computational prediction, whose chemical shift tensors have been simulated using density functional theory. For each fluorophenol isomer one predicted crystal structure was found, whose measured and computed chemical shift tensors agree within experimental and computational error margins and these are thus proposed as the true fluorophenol xenon clathrate structures.

Participation of xenon guest in hydrogen bond network of ß-hydroquinone crystal.

In the ß-hydroquinone (ß-HQ)-Xe crystal, the Xe guest is placed between two hexagonal rings of coupled [···O-H···O-](6) H-bonds. This clathrate is treated as the model for monitoring the H-bonding system with the Xe participation. Three kinds of isotope effects due to the H/D substitution in the [···O-H···O-](6) bonds are considered: (i) structural changes in the clathrate (X-ray diffraction), (ii) variations of (129)Xe NMR signal of the guest (CP MAS), and (iii) variations of selected vibrations of the host (IR). This study predicts subtle inclination of every other hydroxyl group of the [···O-H···O-](6) rings into the Xe atom and formation of six Xe···H-O pairs in every cage, the frequency shift of the γOH mode due to these contacts, -ΔγOH(Xe···H) > 74 cm(-1), as well as the enthalpy formation, -ΔH(Xe···H) > 6-8 kJ mol(-1). Our IR results reveal a tendency of the Xe atom to form the H-bond-like network inside its cage and much weaker Xe···D-O interactions in the H/D substituted crystal. The (129)Xe NMR results do not reflect this kind of interactions due to averaging of the (129)Xe shielding phenomena, probably. We also predict elongation of the O···O distances due to the ß-HQ-Xe crystal heating and the Xe escape.