Nanocrystalline Cobalt Oxide Prepared by a New Thermal Process for an Anode Material in Lithium-Ion Battery

Abstract

As a lithium ion battery anode electrode, Co3O4 is one of the promising materials due to its high theoretical capacity. However, Co3O4 has some disadvantages such as a low coulombic efficiency, large potential hysteresis, large volume change during cycling and poor capacity retention. We synthesized nanostructured nanocrystalline cobalt oxides by a new, simple thermal process. Porous, nano-sized and nanocrystalline properties affect the electrochemical behavior of Co3O4. It is demonstrated in this thesis that the size of particle, grain size and porous nature significantly affect the capacity of Co3O4 because of increased electrical conductivity and shortened lithium ion diffusion path. In addition, proposed heating mechanism proves to be applicable to early transition metal oxides as well as late transition metal oxides.