High-Conductive AZO Nanoparticles Decorated Ni-Rich Cathode Material with Enhanced Electrochemical Performance

A facile solution route was employed for the preparation of an Al doped ZnO (AZO) coating layer, which was composed of many AZO nanoparticles. These nanoparticles have an average particle size of 50 nm and have been successfully decorated on the surface of NCM523. As cathode material for lithium ion batteries, the AZO-decorated NCM523 exhibits superior lithium storage improvements according to good cyclic performance, enhanced rate performance (134.2 mAhg –1 after 200 cycles at 10 C), and high-temperature performance (148.9 mAhg –1 at 10 C at 60 °C). Such significant improvement could be attributed to the structural superiority of the AZO decoration on the surface of NCM523, which would stabilize the surface structure of the bulk, suppress the undesirable side reaction at the interface of the electrodes, and lead to the enhancement of the conductivity. The preparation of AZO-decorated NCM523 provides an effective method for the high-performance lithium ion batteries and has a certain reference for other materials.