Accelerated Screening of High-Energy Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes

The need for better battery materials has driven research into underexplored complex phase spaces. Herein, we perform the first high-throughput electrochemical study of the entire Li–Ni–Mn–O system of interest for next-generation high-energy cathodes. We first adapt a high-throughput electrochemical system to cycle 64 mg-scale cathodes simultaneously and demonstrate its effectiveness with two test materials: LiCoO2 and Li[Ni1/3Mn1/3Co1/3]O2. The average values for the electrochemical properties obtained for the combinatorial samples show excellent agreement with literature, and cell-to-cell reproducibility is about 7%. The results for the Li–Ni–Mn–O system deepens our understanding dramatically and will guide the rational design of high-energy cathodes.