A series of spinel phase cathode materials prepared by a simple hydrothermal process for rechargeable lithium batteries

A series of spinel-structured materials have been prepared by a simple hydrothermal procedure in an aqueous medium. The new synthetic method is time and energy saving i.e., no further thermal treatment and extended grinding. The main experimental process involved the insertion of lithium into electrolytic manganese dioxide with glucose as a mild reductant in an autoclave. Both the hydrothermal temperature and the presence of glucose play the critical roles in determining the final spinel integrity. Particular electrochemical performance has also been systematically explored, and the results show that Al3+, F- co-substituted spinels have the best combination of initial capacity and capacity retention among all these samples, exhibited the initial capacity of 115 mAh/g and maintained more than 90% of the initial value at the 50th cycle. - Graphical abstract: It is a SEM image of the spinel LiMn2O4, which was prepared by this novel hydrothermal procedure. It illustrates that reasonable-crystallized spinel oxide has occurred through the special hydrothermal process and the average particle size declined to about 1 μm. This homogeneous grain size distribution provides an important morphological basis for the reversibility and accessibility of lithium ion insertion/extraction reactions