The effect of Cr doping on Li ion diffusion in LiFePO₄from first principles investigations and Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

Using the adiabatic trajectory method, the migration energy barriers for the migration of Li ions and Cr ions along the one-dimensional diffusion pathway in pure and Cr doped LiFePO4 are obtained from first principles calculations. The results show that while Li ions can diffuse along the diffusion pathway easily, Cr ions do not easily diffuse away from their initial positions. This means that the heavy Cr ions will block the one-dimensional diffusion pathway of the material. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to evaluate the influences of the blocking behaviours on the electrochemical performance of LiFePO4 cathode material for Li ion secondary batteries. The results show that the evaluated capacity is highly sensitive to the amount of the dopant, the size of the super-cell being used for simulation (particle size of the powder cathode material) and the Monte Carlo steps for statistics (charge–discharge current density).