Design and electrochemical investigation of a novel graphene oxide-silver joint conductive agent on LiFePO4 cathodes in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries

• A graphene oxide–silver joint conductive agent on LiFePO4 is newly designed.
• The commercial carbon black may be effectively replaced by the joint conductive agent.
• LFP:GO:Ag:B (85:8:2:5 wt%) shows the most improved capacity with stable cycleability.

We designed a novel graphene oxide–silver (GO–Ag) joint conductive agent to improve the low electronic conductivity of LiFePO4 (LFP) and attempted to replace the commercial carbon black. The phase evaluations of fabricated cathodes have been characterized using X-ray diffraction and it shows no additional peaks from GO–Ag. The morphological and elemental analysis depicts that the joint GO–Ag enwraps the LFP with uniform distribution of elements. The electrochemical profiles corroborate the stable cycleability and better capability. The optimized electrode gives the better initial charge–discharge capacity of ∼155 mAh/g and ∼150 mAh/g at a 0.5C rate, respectively.

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