Origin of capacity fading in nano-sized Co3O4 electrodes:: Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy study

Transition metal oxides have been suggested as innovative, high-energy electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries because their electrochemical conversion reactions can transfer two to six electrons. However, nano-sized transition metal oxides, especially Co3O4, exhibit drastic capacity decay during discharge/charge cycling, which hinders their practical use in lithium-ion batteries. Herein, we prepared nano-sized Co3O4 with high crystallinity using a simple citrate-gel method and used electrochemical impedance spectroscopy method to examine the origin for the drastic capacity fading observed in the nano-sized Co3O4 anode system. During cycling, AC impedance responses were collected at the first discharged state and at every subsequent tenth discharged state until the 100th cycle. By examining the separable relaxation time of each electrochemical reaction and the goodness-of-fit results, a direct relation between the charge transfer process and cycling performance was clearly observed.