Turning Carbon Black to Hollow Carbon Nanospheres for Enhancing Charge Storage Capacities of LiMn(2)O(4), LiCoO(2), LiNiMnCoO(2), and LiFePO(4) Lithium-Ion Batteries

[Image: see text] Carbon black nanospheres were turned to hollow carbon nanospheres (HCNs) and were used as the conductive additive in the cathodes of Li-ion batteries (LIBs). The results show that 10 wt % HCN added to the LIB cathodes, such as LiMn(2)O(4), LiCoO(2), LiNiMnCoO(2), and LiFePO(4), can provide significantly higher specific capacity than those using spherical carbon black. For example, a specific capacity of the LiMn(2)O(4)/HCN/PVDF cathode at 80:10:10 wt % with a bulk electrical conductivity of 1.07 Ω cm(–2) is 125 mA h g(–1) at 0.1 C from 3.0 to 4.3 V versus Li(+)/Li, which is 3.85-fold higher than that using Super P. The stability tested at 1 C remains over 95% after 800 charge/discharge cycles with 100% Coulombic efficiency. Replacing the present carbon black conductive additive with HCN in this work may be one of the best choices to increase the charge storage performance of LIBs rather than only focusing on the development of active cathode materials.