Understanding and recent development of carbon coating on LiFePO 4 cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries

Olivine-structured LiFePO4 has been the focus of research in developing low cost, high performance cathode materials for lithium ion batteries. Various processes have been developed to synthesize LiFePO4 or C/LiFePO4 (carbon coating on LiFePO4), and some of them are being used to mass produce C/LiFePO4 at the commercial or pilot scale. Due to the low intrinsic electronic and ionic conductivities of LiFePO4, the decrease of particle size and the nano-layer of carbon coating on LiFePO4 particle surfaces are necessary to achieve a high electrochemical performance. Significant progress has been made in understanding and controlling phase purity, particle size and carbon coating of the C/LiFePO4 composite material…