Cycling behaviour of LiCoO2 cathode materials prepared by PAA-assisted sol–gel method for rechargeable lithium batteries

High-temperature LiCoO2 powders with sub-micron, narrow particle-size distributions, and excellent phase-pure particles are synthesized from molecularly mixed amorphous gel precursors by a sol–gel method. The crystallinity and morphology of the powders are examined by means of X-ray diffraction, Rietveld refinement and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. LiCoO2 powders using poly(acrylic acid) deliver a high initial discharge capacity of 133 mA h g−1 and retain 97% of the initial discharge capacity after 350 cycles in Li//1 M LiPF6-EC/DEC//LiCoO2 cells.