Anode material for lithium secondary batteries and manufacturing method thereof

LTO anode material with suppressed memory effect by eliminating oxygen vacancies through two-stage atmospheric and oxygen heat treatment

This technology is an anode material manufacturing process that combines primary atmospheric heat treatment to enhance the electrical and lithium-ion conductivity of lithium-titanium-oxide (LTO) with secondary oxygen-atmosphere heat treatment to eliminate oxygen vacancies and suppress the memory effect.

While LTO is structurally stable, it suffers from low electrical and lithium-ion conductivity. Attempts to improve conductivity through methods like doping have been limited by the memory effect, where irreversible reactions lead to a reduction in battery capacity.

This technology involves primary heat treatment of the LTO base structure at 780°C in an atmospheric environment to secure conductivity, followed by secondary heat treatment in an oxygen atmosphere at the same temperature to reduce the oxygen vacancy area ratio to 9.38% or less. It can be applied to fast-charging electric bus batteries, auxiliary power sources for cold starts, and long-life energy storage cells, providing an anode that prevents cumulative capacity loss after repeated use without the need for metal doping.

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Key Features:

• Preparing a base structure containing non-metal-doped lithium-titanium-oxide (LTO) as an anode material raw material
• Performing primary heat treatment on the base structure in an atmospheric environment to improve electrical and lithium-ion conductivity
• Performing secondary heat treatment on the primary heat-treated base structure in an oxygen supply atmosphere of 0.5 L/min to eliminate oxygen vacancies
• A lithium-titanium-oxide anode material with an oxygen vacancy area ratio of 9.38% or less via XPS analysis and an identical average lattice distance between the core and surface

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This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT for research on the correlation between the physical properties of atomic-level controlled metal nanoclusters and their photoelectrochemical behavior.

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