iChEM researcher, Prof. Quanfeng Dong, from XMU made a significant progress in lithium ion batteries cathode materials. The result was published in Advanced Materials with the topic “High performance polyoxometalate-based cathode materials for rechargeable lithium ion batteries” (2015, DOI: 10.1002). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201501088/abstract

Rechargeable lithium batteries show great promise for high-density energy storage for applications ranging from consumer electronics to electric vehicles and grid balancing. However, the low Li-ion mobility and/or the low electronic conductivity of the traditional battery materials hamper a high power density output. In order to satisfy the increasing demand for high power density and energy density, new cathode materials capable of multielectron redox reactions and that enable more rapid Li-ion transportation (while still displaying stable cycling performance) are required.

To solve the problems, Dong et al. identified polyoxovanadates (PMOs) as a new class of potential cathode material for future high energy and power density Li-ion rechargeable batteries. Specifically, the new material, Li7[V15O36(CO3)] ensure a high power density output of 25.7 kW kg−1 with an energy density output of 370 W h kg−1. In terms of volumetric densities, Li7[V15O36(CO3)] exhibits energy and power densities of 1.5 kW h L−1 and 55 kW L−1.

The achievement was made under the cooperation of Prof. Dong group and Prof. Leroy Cronin group in Glasgow University, England. The work is funded by National 973 Program, NSFC Key Project, and Kelvin-Smith Research Fellowship. Doctor Jiajia Chen and other students finished this paper under the guidance from Prof. Dong quanfeng, Prof. Leroy Cronin, and Prof. Mingsen Chen. Prof. Leroy Cronin made a lot of significant achievement about PMOs, his works related to PMOs have been published in Nature（DOI:10.1038/nature13951）and Science（ DOI:10.1126/science.1257443）