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A study on the effect of chitosan chelating agent on the formation of spinel LiMn2O4 using sol-gel method is reported. Chitosan was added into a precursor solution containing lithium and manganese ions and then was heated at 600 °C to form spinel LiMn2O4. Chitosan chelating agent performed better in precursor solution at pH 4 than at pH 8. X-ray diffraction demonstrated that samples prepared with chitosan resulted in higher weight percentage of spinel LiMn2O4 compared to samples prepared without chelating agent or with citric acid. Combination between chitosan and citric acid resulted in the highest weight percentage of spinel LiMn2O4 compared to other samples, amounted to 91%, with crystallite size of 47 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that chitosan helps to direct the formation of pyramid-like structure and decrease the particles’ size and agglomeration. Chitosan was also employed as a template to obtain spinel LiMn2O4 with high surface area via formation of porous structure with the highest resulting surface area of 18 m2/g. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]