Preparation of V-Doped LiFePO4/C as the Optimized Cathode Material for Lithium Ion Batteries

LiFe1-x,Vx,PO4/C composites were synthesized by solid state reaction. The effect of carbon coating and V doping on the performance of LiFePO4 has been systematically investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), charge/discharge and cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurement. The results show that carbon coating and proper amount of V incorporation do not significantly change the host crystal structure of LiFePO4, while the electrochemical performance of LiFePO4 can be significantly improved. Particularly, the LiFe0.96V0.04PO4/C exhibits the best performance with a specific discharge capacity of 105.5 mA h/g at 5.0 C, 90.3 mA h/g at 10 C and 66.7 mA h/g at 30 C with stable cycle performance, which is significantly improved compared with the pure LiFePO4/C. The cyclic voltammograms result reveals that V doping could decrease the resistance of LiFePO4/C composite electrode drastically and improve its reversibility.