A valence state evaluation of a positive electrode material in an Li-ion battery with first-principles K- and L-edge XANES spectral simulations and resonance photoelectron spectroscopy

X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analysis is an element-specific method for proving electronic state mostly in the field of applied physics, such as battery and catalysis reactions, where the valence change plays an important role. In particular, many results have been reported for the analysis of positive electrode materials of Li-ion batteries, where multiple transition materials contribute to the reactions. However, XANES analysis has been limited to identifying the valence state simply in comparison with reference materials. When the shape of XANES spectra shows complicated changes, we were not able to identify the valence states or estimate the valence quantitatively, resulting in insufficient reaction analysis. To overcome such issues, we propose a valence state evaluation method using K- and L-edge XANES analysis with first-principles simulations. By using this method, we demonstrated that the complicated reaction mechanism of Li(Ni1/3Co1/3Mn1/3)O2 can be successfully analyzed for distinguishing each contribution of Ni, Co, Mn, and O to the redox reactions during charge operation. In addition to the XANES analysis, we applied resonant photoelectron spectroscopy (RPES) and diffraction anomalous fine structure spectroscopy (DAFS) with first-principles calculations to the reaction analysis of Co and Mn, which shows no or very little contribution to the redox. The combination of RPES and first-principles calculations successfully enables us to confirm the contribution of Co at high potential regions by electively observing Co 3d orbitals. Through the DAFS analysis, we deeply analyzed the spectral features of Mn K-edges and concluded that the observed spectral shape change for Mn does not originate from the valence change but from the change in distribution of wave functions around Mn upon Li extraction.