Enhancing the Electrocatalysis of LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 by Introducing Lithium Deficiency for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

LiNi Co Mn O (NCM523), as a cathode material for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, has attracted considerable attention and been successfully commercialized for decades. NCM is also a promising electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and the catalytic activity is highly correlated to its structure. In this paper, we successfully obtain NCM523 with three different structures: spinel NCM synthesized at low temperature (LT-NCM), disordered NCM (DO-NCM) with lithium deficiency obtained at high temperature, and layered hexagonal NCM at high temperature (HT-NCM). By introducing lithium deficiency to tune the valence state of transition metals in NCM from Ni to Ni , DO-NCM exhibits the best catalytic activity with the lowest onset potential (∼1.48 V) and Tafel slope (∼85.6 mV dec ), whereas HT-NCM exhibits the worst catalytic activity with the highest onset potential (∼1.63 V) and Tafel slope (∼241.8 mV dec ).