Y.P. Wu

Materials for lithium-ion batteries by mechanochemical methods

Abstract: Lithium-ion batteries have many advantages over traditional rechargeable batteries and their development has been very rapid. In this chapter, preparation and electrochemical performance of their key materials including cathode materials such as LiCoO 2 and LiMn 2 O 4 , anode materials such as carbon, alloys and nitrides, and electrolytes such as oxides and sulfides by mechanochemical (MC) methods are primarily summarized. Compared with conventional solid state reactions at high temperature, the MC methods appear to accelerate and simplify the synthesis process and decrease the energy expenses as well as the cost of the material. In addition, the prepared materials present good electrochemical performance. When MC methods are combined with other techniques, their advantages can be more fully displayed. In the meanwhile, MC reactions will have some unfavourable actions to some materials which should be avoided. Finally, some further aplications for MC methods in lithium-ion batteries are pointed out.

Nanostructured Oxides as Cathode Materials for Supercapacitors

This chapter presents a review of the research progress on the metal oxide and its composites for cathode of supercapacitor. Typical and mostly used methods for various metal oxides with different nanostructures are summarized. More specifically, these approaches include physical routes, such as sonication and microwaves, and chemical routes such as hydrothermal, sol–gel, and template. Our main focus is on the most recent work on nanostructure oxides including transition metal oxides such as RuO2, MnO2, MoO3, Co3O4, VO2, V2O5, ZnO, NiO, PbO2, and SnO2; intercalation compounds such as LiCoO2, LiMn2O4, Li[Ni1/3Co1/3Mn1/3]O2, NaxMnO2 and KxMnO2; and conversion compounds such as NiCo2O4, ZnCo2O4, CoMoO4, Zn2SnO4, NiMoO4 and MnMoO4. Some new trends in nanomaterials for supercapacitors are also proposed.