Seongmin Bak¹, Xiao-Qing Yang¹, Youngho Shin²; ¹Brookhaven National Laboratory, ²Argonne National Laboratory

To overcome the above drawbacks of Ni-rich layered cathode, the concentration gradient Ni-rich layered oxide (CG-NCM) which is compositionally graded material by placing Ni-rich composition in the particle center, and Mn-rich composition at the particle surface has been proposed. CG-NCM cathode materials stabilize the structure and enable utilize higher Ni-content NCM series to increase capacity without compromising cycle life and safety. Although there are many studies reported about the improvement of the battery performance with this unique concept of the cathode, there is still a lack of information to be needed for further development of CG-NCM. Our recent result of CG-NCM study by using combining X-ray imaging and spectroscopy techniques shows a more comprehensive understanding of how the compositional gradient structure works to stabilize the Ni-rich NCM. More details will be discussed at the conference.