Improving the electrochemical performance of Li-rich manganese-based cathode materials by surface treatment with triethylamine

Li-rich manganese-based cathode material is expected to be extremely promising for next-generation lithium-ion batteries due to its high specific capacity derived from additional anion redox behavior and low cost of the main element manganese. However, the irreversible release of lattice oxygen results in poor structural stability and inferior electrochemical performances, such as low initial Coulomb efficiency, irreversible capacity decay and serious voltage decay, which limits its commercialization. Herein, a simple strategy to improve the structural stability and electrochemical performances by one-step treatment with triethylamine (TEA) at moderate temperature is reported. TEA was used as a surface treatment reagent to prepare the modified Li-rich manganese-based cathode materials with oxygen vacancies and local structural distortion on the surface. The presence of surface distortion layer and oxygen vacancies inhibits irreversible oxygen release. The result exhibits that initial Coulomb efficiency, rate performance and initial discharge specific capacities are improved. After 100 cycles at a current density of 1 C, the specific capacity of the surface-treated material is 204.3 mAh g-1 (172.6 mAh g-1 for the pristine material), with a capacity retention of 81.26%. Even at a high current density of 10 C, the discharge specific capacity of 139.4 mAh g-1 is still achieved, demonstrating the excellent electrochemical performance. This study provides a simple and effective strategy for constructing special surface structures on Li-rich manganese-based materials to achieve high performance. •The electrochemical properties of Li-rich manganese-based cathode materials are improved by TEA surface treatment.•TEA causes the formation of local lattice distortion and oxygen vacancies on the surface as a surface treatment agent.