Cathode Kinetics and Materials for High Temperature Lithium-Oxygen Batteries

The lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) battery, one of the most promising next-generation rechargeable devices, have been receiving tremendous attention from its extremely high energy density of 3500 Wh kg-1 (material based), which is much higher than that of the state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. Recently, the Li-O2 battery system has experienced great breakthrough from the adopting of an elevated operating temperature of 150 °C, above which the formation of Li2O rather than Li2O2 is more thermodynamically favoured, resulting in the dramatically increased battery performance. Herein, we propose to develop cutting-edge cathode materials with fast kinetics for the high temperature (HT) lithium-oxygen (Li-O2) battery, taking advantage of the counterpart knowledge on low temperature solid oxide fuel cells (LTSOFCs). Accomplishment of the project will not only generate great insight to the brand-new HT Li-O2 batteries, but also help bridge the knowledge gap between Li-O2 batteries and SOFCs.