A first principles investigation of transitional metal doping in lithium battery cathode materials
Author(s)
Buta, Sarah H. (Sarah Hume), 1972-![Thumbnail](/bitstream/handle/1721.1/9550/43933766-MIT.pdf.jpg?sequence=5&isAllowed=y)
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisor
Gerbrand Ceder.
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The goal of this work is to understand the properties of mixed-metal intercalation oxides. Using first-principles methods, the effect of doping on the mixing, energetic, and voltage properties as well as the phase diagrams of lithium transition-metal oxides for lithium battery cathode materials was investigated. The effect of doping on the phase separation tendencies of layered transition-metal oxides was examined and it was found that for normal processing temperatures, Al is miscible in layered transition metal oxides (LiMO2) for five of the eight first-row transition metals studied. Temperature-composition phase diagrams for both Li(Al,Co)O2 and Li(Al,Cr)O2 were calculated. In these two systems, Al-doping is limited above 600°C by the formation of [gamma]-LiA1O2 and at very low temperatures owing to the existence of a miscibility gap. Reduced solubility is expected in the layered phase above 600°C for all oxides which have substantial solubility with LiA1O2 due to the formation of yLiAlO2. The effect of transition-metal doping on the average voltage properties in Mn-based spinets was calculated and the large increase in average voltage found experimentally was reproduced. A detailed analysis on the layered structure Li(Al,Co)O2 was performed, studying the energetics of different lithium sites and the effect of short-range clustering on the shape of the voltage curve. Though the average voltage is raised by Al substitution, the unexpected stability of sites with a few Al nearest neighbors leads to an initial decrease in voltage. For the Al-doped LiCoO2 system, a step in the voltage curve is found only for micro-segregated materials. When the Al and Co ions are randomly distributed in a solid solution, the voltage curve shows a continuous, gradual slope. The effect of oxygen defects in the Li(Al,Co)O2 system was investigated. A model for the effect of oxygen vacancies on the free energy of doped layered oxides was created by combining an ideal gas approximation and first-principles energy defect calculations. The results qualitatively confirm experimental studies on oxygen release in lithium battery materials.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-82).
Date issued
1999Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and EngineeringPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Materials Science and Engineering.