Journal of Materials Chemistry is publishing a themed issue on Advanced Materials for Lithium Batteries with guest editors Prof M. Saiful Islam (Bath, UK) and Prof Linda Nazar (Waterloo, Canada). Here’s four of Hot Articles to give you just a taste of what the issue will include. If you’d like to know when the issue is published why not sign-up for the Journal of Materials Chemistry table of contents alert or follow the journal on Twitter.
Benefits of N for O substitution in polyoxoanionic electrode materials: a first principles investigation of the electrochemical properties of Li2FeSiO4−yNy (y = 0, 0.5, 1). M. Armand and M. E. Arroyo y de Dompablo used first principles calculations to investigate the effect of N for O substitution on the electrochemical properties of Li2FeSiO4. Armand and Arroyo y de Dompablo suggest that O + N-based scaffold structures could be the next frontier in electrode design. J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0JM04216A (Advance Article)
Effect of ball-milling and lithium insertion on the lithium mobility and structure of Li3Fe2(PO4)3. Clare P. Grey, Jordi Cabana and co-workers use Li NMR to show that mechanical milling enhances the mobility of Li in Li3Fe2(PO4)3. They attribute the enhancement to both a reduction of the diffusion lengths and an increase in the intrinsic mobility of lithium in the sample. J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0JM04197A (Advance Article)
Direct and modified ionothermal synthesis of LiMnPO4 with tunable morphology for rechargeable Li-ion batteries. A team of scientists based in France have used ionothermal synthesis, using pristine ionic liquids as reacting media, to produce LiMnPO4. The team report three modified versions of ionothermal synthesis. The resulting ionic liquids synthesized LiMnPO4 was found to deliver reversible capacity close to 100 mA h g−1 with excellent cycling stability. J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0JM04423G (Advance Article)
The influence on Fermi energy of Li-site change in LizTi1−yNiyS2 on crossing z = 1. In this Hot Paper a team at the University of Texas at Austin, US, monitored the change in EF within the Ti(IV)/Ti(III) mixed-valence state of Lix(Ti0.9Ni0.1)S2 as x is increased through x = 1 in order to determine how much of the shift of EF is due to the on-site electron–electron electrostatic energy U of the narrow band Ti-3d electrons and how much is due to the shift of the Li in the interlayer space from octahedral to tetrahedral sites. J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI:10.1039/C0JM04227G (Advance Article)
