New Cost‐Effective Halide Solid Electrolytes for All‐Solid‐State Batteries: Mechanochemically Prepared Fe³⁺‐Substituted Li₂ZrCl₆

Abstract

Abstract Owing to the combined advantages of sulfide and oxide solid electrolytes (SEs), that is, mechanical sinterability and excellent (electro)chemical stability, recently emerging halide SEs such as Li 3 YCl 6 are considered to be a game changer for the development of all‐solid‐state batteries. However, the use of expensive central metals hinders their practical applicability. Herein, a new halide superionic conductors are reported that are free of rare‐earth metals: hexagonal close‐packed (hcp) Li 2 ZrCl 6 and Fe 3+ ‐substituted Li 2 ZrCl 6 , derived via a mechanochemical method. Conventional heat treatment yields cubic close‐packed monoclinic Li 2 ZrCl 6 with a low Li + conductivity of 5.7 × 10 −6 S cm −1 at 30 °C. In contrast, hcp Li 2 ZrCl 6 with a high Li + conductivity of 4.0 × 10 −4 S cm −1 is derived via ball‐milling. More importantly, the aliovalent substitution of Li 2 ZrCl 6 with Fe 3+ , which is probed by complementary analyses using X‐ray diffraction, pair distribution function, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy measurements, drastically enhances the Li + conductivity up to ≈1 mS cm −1 for Li 2.25 Zr 0.75 Fe 0.25 Cl 6 . The superior interfacial stability when using Li 2+ x Zr 1− x Fe x Cl 6 , as compared to that when using conventional Li 6 PS 5 Cl, is proved. Furthermore, an excellent electrochemical performance of the all‐solid‐state batteries is achieved via the combination of Li 2 ZrCl 6 and single‐crystalline LiNi 0.88 Co 0.11 Al 0.01 O 2 .