Low-temperature hydrothermal synthesis of spinel-type lithium manganese oxide nanocrystallites

A mild hydrothermal method has been developed to synthesize spinel-type lithium manganese oxide nanocrystallites directly from commercial LiOH, Mn(NO3)2 and H2O2 at 90–110 °C for 8 h. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectroscopy and chemical analysis. The analysis results indicated that spinel-type lithium manganese oxides with the compositions of Li1+xMn2−xO4−δ (0.09≤x≤0.28, δ<0.05) could be obtained by varying the synthesis parameters, such as the concentration of LiOH solution used. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed that the obtained spinel at 110 °C was cubic-shaped with the average size of around 40–50 nm. Finally, the thermal behaviors of the obtained lithium-rich spinel Li1.28Mn1.72O3.99 were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and differential thermal analysis (DTA).