Comparison of the structural and electrochemical properties of LiMn0.4Fe0.6PO4 cathode materials with different synthetic routes

In this study, we firstly evaluate the effects of two different synthetic methods on the structural and electrochemical properties of LiMn0.4Fe0.6PO4, which is used as a composite active cathode material. The structural characteristics are investigated by XRD and Rietveld refinement. The composite produced by mechanical activation, comprising nano-sized spherical particles, shows better electrochemical performance, but the contribution of the Mn3+/Mn2+ redox couple in the sol-gel technique on electrochemical properties is higher than that of mechanical activation. The LiMn0.4Fe0.6PO4 prepared by sol-gel process has higher cycle stability because the property of manganese mainly affects the cycle performance on LiMnyFe1−yPO4.