Structure and electrochemical performance of LiVMnO (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.20) cathode materials for rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

LiMnO and vanadium-substituted LiVMnO ( x = 0.05, 0.10 0.15 and 0.20) cathode materials were synthesized by sol-gel method using aqueous solutions of metal nitrates and tartaric acid as chelating agent at 600 °C for 10 h. The structure and electrochemical properties of the synthesized materials were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, SEM, TEM and charge-discharge studies. X-ray powder diffraction analysis was changed in lattice parameters with increasing vanadium content suggesting the occupation of the substituent within LiMnO interlayer spacing. TEM and SEM analyses show that LiVMnO has a smaller particle size and more regular morphological structure with narrow size distribution than LiMnO. It is concluded that the structural stability and cycle life improvement were due to many factors like better crystallinity, smaller particle size and uniform distribution compared to the LiMnO cathode material. The LiVMnO cathode material has improved the structural stability and excellent electrochemical performances of the rechargeable lithium ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]