Preparation and characterization of core–shell battery materials for Li-ion batteries manufactured by substrate induced coagulation

[Display omitted] ▶ Core-shell battery material preparation using a dip-coating method. ▶ Substrate induced coagulation for battery materials. ▶ Solid-state reaction of titania on lithium cobalt oxide. ▶ Formation of inorganic layer studied by XRD, Rietveld analysis, XPS and SEM. ▶ Surface reaction has little effect on the content of electroactive material. In this work Substrate Induced Coagulation (SIC) was used to coat the cathode material LiCoO2, commonly used in Li-ion batteries, with fine nano-sized particulate titania. Substrate Induced Coagulation is a self-assembled dip-coating process capable of coating different surfaces with fine particulate materials from liquid media. A SIC coating consists of thin and rinse-prove layers of solid particles. An advantage of this dip-coating method is that the method is easy and cheap and that the materials can be handled by standard lab equipment. Here, the SIC coating of titania on LiCoO2 is followed by a solid-state reaction forming new inorganic layers and a core–shell material, while keeping the content of active battery material high. This titania based coating was designed to confine the reaction of extensively delithiated (charged) LiCoO2 and the electrolyte. The core–shell materials were characterized by SEM, XPS, XRD and Rietveld analysis.