Mesoporous LiMnPO₄/C nanoparticles as high performance cathode material for lithium ion batteries

LiMnPO₄ has been considered as one of the most promising high voltage cathode materials for next-generation lithium ion batteries. However, LiMnPO₄ suffers from intrinsic drawbacks of extremely low electronic conductivity and ionic diffusivity between LiMnPO₄/MnPO₄. In this paper, mesoporous LiMnPO₄ nanoparticles are synthesized successfully via a facile glycine-assisted solvothermal rout. The as-prepared mesoporous LiMnPO₄/C nanoparticles present well-defined abundant mesoporous structure (diameter of 3 ∼ 10 nm), uniform carbon layer (thickness of 3 ∼ 4 nm), high specific surface area (90.1 m²/g). As a result, the mesoporous LiMnPO₄/C nanoparticles achieve excellent electrochemical performance as cathode materials for lithium ion batteries. It demonstrates a high discharge capacity of 167.7, 161.6, 156.4, 148.4 and 128.7 mAh/g at 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2 and 5C, and maintains a discharge capacity of 130.0 mAh/g after 100 cycles at 1C. The good electrochemical performance is attributed to its special interpenetrating mesoporous structure in LiMnPO₄ nanoparticles, which significantly enhances the ionic and electronic transport and additional capacitive behavior to compensate the sluggish kinetics.