Low temperature hydrothermal synthesis and electrochemical performances of LiFePO4 microspheres as a cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

Mesoporous LiFePO4 microspheres were simply synthesized by a low temperature (130°C), template-free hydrothermal route using low cost LiOH, Fe(NO3)3 and NH4H2PO4 as starting raw materials. These microspheres are composed of densely aggregated LiFePO4 nanoparticles and filled with interconnected mesochannels, which demonstrates not only a high tap density (≥1. 4 g cm-3), a high capacity of 150 mAh g-1 (~90% of its theoretical capacity) at 0. 5 C rate, but also a ≥ 80% utilization of its theoretical capacity at a high rate of 1 C. In addition, the hydrothermal synthesis developed in this work is simple and cost-effective, it may provide a new route for production of the LiFePO4 material in battery applications. © 2012 The Author(s).