Authors: Andrea Fedorková Renáta Oriňáková Andrej Oriňák HansDieter Wiemhöfer Dušan Kaniansky Martin Winter
Publish Date: 2009/11/20
Volume: 14, Issue: 12, Pages: 2173-2178
Abstract
In this work we studied LiFePO4 particles coated with thin films of highly conductive polypyrrole PPy and their electrochemical performance in cathode layers of lithium cells Carbonfree LiFePO4 particles were synthesized by a solvothermal method Besides this a part of the experiments were carried out on commercial carboncoated LiFePO4 for comparison Polypyrrole coated LiFePO4 particles PPyLiFePO4 were obtained by a straightforward oxidative polymerization of dissolved pyrrole on LiFePO4 particles dispersed in water The use of polyethylene glycol PEG as an additive during the polymerization was decisive to achieve high electronic conductivities in the final cathode layers The carbonfree and carboncoated LiFePO4 particles were prepared with PPy and with PPy/PEG coating The obtained PPyLiFePO4 and PPy/PEGLiFePO4 powders were characterized by SEM EIS cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge/discharge measurements in lithiumion cells with lithium metal as counter and reference electrode Carbonfree LiFePO4 coated with PPy/PEG hybrid films exhibited very good electrode kinetics and a stable discharge capacity of 156 mAh/g at a rate of C/10 Impedance measurements showed that the PPy/PEG coating decreases the chargetransfer resistance of the corresponding LiFePO4 cathode material very effectively which was attributed to a favorable mixed ionic and electronic conductivity of the PPy/PEG coatingsWe acknowledge the financial support from DAAD grant number 03042007/SMS Slovak Grant Agency VEGA grant number 1/0043/08 and Project of the Centre of Excelence under VVCE007007 financially supported by APVV Slovakia We also gratefully acknowledge the support within the BMBF project LiVe as well as a support by the company Südchemie
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