The use of batteries has been increasing in recent years. For a long time, the best choice for commercial use have been Li-ion batteries, where graphite is still the most used anode material, and cathode materials are still being developed. The first and commercially most successful cathode material is LCO (LiCoO2), which is impractical for use in electric cars due to the high cost of Co and the ability to reversibly exchange only 0.55 mol of Li. As an alternative to LCO cathode material, LNO (LiNiO2) material is presented. LNO has a higher capacity (0.75 mol of Li can be reversibly exchanged) and a lower price due to the greater availability of Ni. Since LNO has a problem with stability at higher voltages, the improvement of the stability of LNO cathodes was the main goal of my master's thesis. We tried to improve the stability by forming Al2O3 coatings using the sol-gel method with the use of three different precursors: aluminium sec-butoxide (Al(O-s-But)3), aluminium isopropoxide (Al(O-i-Pr)3), and aluminium acetate (Al(Ac)2(OH)). We made cathodes from the obtained material and using galvanostatic measurements determined, with which precursor, with what amount of said precursor, and with which calcination temperature the best stability is achieved. Al(Ac)2(OH) in an amount that results in 0.25 wt% of Al2O3 and calcinated at 400 °C showed the best results.
|