Surface yttrium-doping induced by element segregation to suppress oxygen release in Li-rich layered oxide cathodes

Doping electrochemically inert elements in Li-rich layered oxide cathodes usually stabilizes the structure to improve electrochemical performance at the expense of available capacity.Here,we use an element segregation principle to realize a uniform surface doping without capacity sacrifice.On the basis of Hume-Rothery rule,element yttrium is chosen as a candidate dopant to spontaneously segregate at particle surface due to mismatched ionic size.Combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy mapping,yttrium is demonstrated uniformly distributed on particle surface.More importantly,a significant alleviation of oxygen release after surface doping is detected by operando differential electrochemical mass spectrometry.As a result,the modified sample exhibits improved reversibility of oxygen redox with 82.1%coulombic efficiency and excellent cycle performances with 84.15%capacity retention after 140 cycles.Postmortem analysis by transmission electron microscopy,Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction reveal that the modified sample maintains the layered structure without a significant structure transformation after long cycles.This work provides an effective strategy with a series of elements to meet the industrial application.