Impact of Oxygen Vacancies in LiCoO2 on the Electrochemical Performance of Garnet‐Based All‐Solid‐State Li‐Metal Batteries

Abstract Garnet‐structured Li7La3Zr2O7 (LLZO) is considered as one of the most promising solid electrolytes for high safety all‐solid‐state Li batteries (SSLBs) applications. However, this type of SSLB utilizing LiCoO2/LLZO as composite cathode faces high capacity degradation because of delamination...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advanced Science
Main Authors: Zhizhen Qin, Jehad Ahmed, Sebastian Speer, Dmitri L. Danilov, Anna Windmüller, Shicheng Yu, Chih‐Long Tsai, Hermann Tempel, Josef Granwehr, Wen‐Wei Wu, Jeng‐Kuei Chang, Rüdiger‐A. Eichel, Peter H. L. Notten
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-10-01
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202508750
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Summary:Abstract Garnet‐structured Li7La3Zr2O7 (LLZO) is considered as one of the most promising solid electrolytes for high safety all‐solid‐state Li batteries (SSLBs) applications. However, this type of SSLB utilizing LiCoO2/LLZO as composite cathode faces high capacity degradation because of delamination between LiCoO2 (LCO) and LLZO and possible oxygen vacancy‐driven microcrack formation within LCO. Herein, a pure oxygen atmosphere is used for sintering the composite cathode to limit oxygen vacancy formation in LCO. Different sintering temperatures are also used to reduce the effect of sintering atmospheres, which suggests the non‐reversible oxidation peak at ∼3.8 V is not related to Li2CO3 formation. Although the Coulombic efficiencies of the first electrochemical cycle of SSLBs sintered in pure oxygen atmosphere are improved, their electrochemical performances are lower than that of air‐sintered SSLB due to higher cell resistances from the reduction of oxygen vacancies in LCO and possible higher volume change during electrochemical cycling. Also, the lower electrochemical cycling performance and observing tens of micrometers long inter‐granular cracks in the highly dense composite cathode suggests that microstructural optimization is more important than a high relative density. These observations provide guidelines for further improving the electrochemical cycling performance of garnet‐structure‐based SSLBs toward practical applications.
ISSN:2198-3844