New Cost-Effective Halide Solid Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Batteries: Mechanochemically Prepared Fe3+-Substituted Li2ZrCl6

Owing to the combined advantages of sulfide and oxide solid electrolytes (SEs), that is, mechanical sinterability and excellent (electro)chemical stability, recently emerging halide SEs such as Li3YCl6 are considered to be a game changer for the development of all-solid-state batteries. However, the use of expensive central metals hinders their practical applicability. Herein, a new halide superionic conductors are reported that are free of rare-earth metals: hexagonal close-packed (hcp) Li2ZrCl6 and Fe3+-substituted Li2ZrCl6, derived via a mechanochemical method. Conventional heat treatment yields cubic close-packed monoclinic Li2ZrCl6 with a low Li+ conductivity of 5.7 x 10(-6) S cm(-1) at 30 degrees C. In contrast, hcp Li2ZrCl6 with a high Li+ conductivity of 4.0 x 10(-4) S cm(-1) is derived via ball-milling. More importantly, the aliovalent substitution of Li2ZrCl6 with Fe3+, which is probed by complementary analyses using X-ray diffraction, pair distribution function, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy measurements, drastically enhances the Li+ conductivity up to approximate to 1 mS cm(-1) for Li2.25Zr0.75Fe0.25Cl6. The superior interfacial stability when using Li2+xZr1-xFexCl6, as compared to that when using conventional Li6PS5Cl, is proved. Furthermore, an excellent electrochemical performance of the all-solid-state batteries is achieved via the combination of Li2ZrCl6 and single-crystalline LiNi0.88Co0.11Al0.01O2.

Automated summary

The new halide superionic conductors Li2ZrCl6 and Fe3+-substituted Li2ZrCl6 exhibit high Li+ conductivity, offering new possibilities for the development of all-solid-state batteries.