Abstract
Li-ion batteries have played a very important role in the commercialization of HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles) and EVs (electric vehicles) in the past few decades. With major companies like Ford promising to go fully electric within the decade, research into battery materials have become more extensive. Originally, lithium cobalt oxide has been one of the main cathode materials (still used extensively in smart devices), but this material has low energy density, since it is able to intercalate only half of the Li while cycling. LiNixMnyCo1-x-yO2 (or NMC for short) are currently being utilized by many EVs due to their high energy density. Current battery research is more focused on increasing the Ni content in the NMCs which further increases energy density. With NMC811 recently commercialized, our studies focus on LiNi0.85Mn0.075Co0.075O2, which is the next step.

In this study, we will present the synthesis process for LiNi0.85Mn0.075Co0.075O2 by co-precipitation method (adopted industrially), which is optimized very carefully with respect to pH, temperature, as well as concentration of the reactants, etc. This material has been engineered to have a better capacity and capacity retention using the optimization of the calcination temperature. This material was further characterized by PXRD (powdered x-ray diffraction), ICP-OES (inductive coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry), SEM (scanning electron microscopy), and electrochemical performance using galvanostatic charge-discharge cycling technique.