Realizing simultaneously enhanced energy and power density full-cell construction using mixed hard carbon/Li4Ti5O12 electrode

Practical applications of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with both high energy and power density are urgently demanded, which require suitable charge/discharge platform, fast charge-transfer kinetics, as well as optimal solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer of electrode materials. In this work, a high-performance lithium-ion battery (LIB) full cell was assembled by using commercial LiNi0.33Co0.33Mn0.33O2 (NCM111) as the positive electrode and mixed Li4Ti5O12 (LTO)/hard carbon (HC) as the negative electrode. It reveals that the component ratio between LTO and HC plays a critical role in manipulating the electric conductivity and the electro-reaction platform. The electrochemical test results show that when the content of HC is 10 wt%, the as-constructed full cell demonstrates the best electrochemical, with a maximum energy density of 149.2 Wh.kg(-1) and a maximum power density of 2195 W.kg(-1) at 10 A.g(-1) (30C). This outperforms all the assembled systems within our work range and the state-of-the-art literatures. The NCM//Li4Ti5O12 + 10 wt% HC battery system also exhibits a good capacity retention after 1000 cycles at the current density of 1 A.g(-1). This work provides a new approach to enhance the full-cell performance by mixing electrode materials with different charge potentials and reaction kinetics.

Automated summary

In this study, a high-performance lithium-ion battery full cell was assembled using commercial LiNi0.33Co0.33Mn0.33O2 as the positive electrode and a mixture of Li4Ti5O12/hard carbon as the negative electrode. The optimal ratio of LTO and HC was found to be crucial in manipulating the electric conductivity and electro-reaction platform. The constructed full cell with 10 wt% HC demonstrated the best electrochemical performance, surpassing all systems within the study range and previous literature.