Synergistic Li6PS5Cl@Li3OCl composite electrolyte for high-performance all-solid-state lithium batteries

LiPSCl is a highly wanted sulfide-solid-electrolyte (SSE) for developing all-solid-state lithium batteries, due to its high ionic conductivity, good processability and abundant compositional elements. However, its cyclability is poor because of harmful side reactions at the LiPSCl/Li interface and growth of lithium dendrites inside LiPSCl phase. Herein, we report a simple interface-engineering remedy to boost the electrochemical performance of LiPSCl, by coating its surface with a Li-compatible electrolyte LiOCl having low electronic conductivity. The obtained LiPSCl@LiOCl core@shell structure exhibits a synergistic effect. Consequently, compared with the bare LiPSCl, this composite electrolyte exhibits great performance improvements: 1) In Li|electrolyte|Li symmetric cells, the critical current density at 30 °C gets increased from 0.6 mA cm to 1.6 mA cm, and the lifetime gets prolonged from 320 h to 1400 h at the cycling current of 0.2 mA cm or from 6 h to 900 h at the cycling current of 0.5 mA cm; 2) In Li|electrolyte|NCM721 full cells running at 30 °C, the cycling capacity at 0.2 C (or 0.5 C) gets enhanced by 20% (or from unfeasible to be feasible) for 100 cycles and the rate capability reaches up to 2 C from 0.2 C; and in full cells running at 60 °C, the cycling capacity is increased by 7% at 0.2 C and the rate capability is enhanced to 3.0 C from 0.5 C. The experimental studies and theoretical computations show that the performance enhancements are due to the confined electron penetration and suppressed lithium dendrites growth at the LiPSCl@LiOCl interface.