Induced AlF3 segregation for the generation of reciprocal Al2O3 and LiF coating layer on self-generated LiMn2O4 surface of over-lithiated oxide based Li-ion battery

For Li-ion batteries, AlF3 coating has been known to modify the over-lithiated layered oxide (OLO) cathodes to produce stable cathodes, but during synthesis procedure, the environment of excess amount of Li metal and free-exposed oxygen may cause the formation of Al2O3 and LiF materials, separately. We investigated the possibility of separated coating formation of Al as Al2O3 and F as LiF from AlF3 using density functional theory calculation, which suggests a favorable binding affinity of both Al2O3 and LiF phases to the OLO surface to support the preferable formation of coating layer of Al2O3 and LiF. Meanwhile, we found the well-distributed surface modification with the coating layers and a small amount of AlF3 (