Improved Cycling Performance of Li‐Excess Cation‐Disordered Cathode Materials upon Fluorine Substitution

Abstract

Abstract The recent discovery of Li‐excess cation‐disordered rock salt cathodes has greatly enlarged the design space of Li‐ion cathode materials. Evidence of facile lattice fluorine substitution for oxygen has further provided an important strategy to enhance the cycling performance of this class of materials. Here, a group of Mn 3+ –Nb 5+ ‐based cation‐disordered oxyfluorides, Li 1.2 Mn 3+ 0.6+0.5 x Nb 5+ 0.2−0.5 x O 2− x F x ( x = 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) is investigated and it is found that fluorination improves capacity retention in a very significant way. Combining spectroscopic methods and ab initio calculations, it is demonstrated that the increased transition‐metal redox (Mn 3+ /Mn 4+ ) capacity that can be accommodated upon fluorination reduces reliance on oxygen redox and leads to less oxygen loss, as evidenced by differential electrochemical mass spectroscopy measurements. Furthermore, it is found that fluorine substitution also decreases the Mn 3+ ‐induced Jahn–Teller distortion, leading to an orbital rearrangement that further increases the contribution of Mn‐redox capacity to the overall capacity.