Nanowerk July 23, 2018
An international team of researchers (USA – Cornell University, UC San Diego, Argonne National Laboratory, industry, China, Germany) identified nanoscale defects or “dislocations” in Lithium-rich NMC cathode materials as they charged batteries at a range of voltages going up to 4.4 volts. They demonstrated that heat treating the cathode materials eliminated most of the defects and restored the original voltage showing that voltage fade had been reversed. According to the researchers while heat treating is not scalable, the physics and materials science-based approach to characterizing and then addressing the nanoscale defects offers promise for finding new ways to address the voltage fading problem… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Formation of a dislocation network during charge. Credit: https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1038/s41560-018-0184-2