Preparation of porous-structured LiFePO4/C composite by vacuum sintering for lithium-ion battery

The LiFePO4/C (LFP/C) composite as a cathode material for lithium-ion battery was synthesized by solid-state reaction under vacuum sintering condition (20-5 Pa). The effects of vacuum sintering temperature and time on the phase composition, morphological structure, and electrochemical performance of LFP/C composite were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, galvanostatic charge-discharge cycling test, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The synthetic LFP/C composite possessed uniform particle-size distribution with porous architecture upon sintering at 650 °C for 12 h and thus exhibited the highest discharge capacity and best cycle performance. The complete decomposition of citric acid at a suitable temperature under vacuum condition resulted in the formation of porous structure. Compared with atmospheric argon sintering, vacuum sintering method led to the formation of porous architecture, the porous sample showed excellent cycle performance with less than 2% capacity loss after 80 cycles at 0.2 C, and reached the discharge specific capacity of 87.6 mAh g−1 at 10 C rate, these are better than that of atmospheric argon sintering. The LFP/C composite prepared under vacuum sintering also reduced the optimum sintering temperature by nearly 100 °C compared with that prepared under atmospheric argon sintering.