Substituted -MnO.sub.2 compounds are provided, where a portion of the Mn is replaced by at least one alternative element. Electrochemical cells incorporating substituted -MnO.sub.2 into the cathode, as well as methods of preparing the substituted -MnO.sub.2, are also provided.

Provided is a method for recycling and refreshing a cathode material, a refreshed cathode material and a lithium ion battery. The method for recycling and refreshing the cathode material includes: 1) a cathode material recycled from a waste battery is mixed with a manganiferous salt solution; 2) an alkali aqueous solution is added to the mixture to react to obtain a manganese hydroxide coating cathode material; and 3) the manganese hydroxide coating cathode material is sintered with a lithium resource to obtain a refreshed cathode material. The refreshed cathode material has no obvious impurity phase and has good crystallinity, high initial charge-discharge efficiency and good cycling performance.

The present invention relates to a method for preparing a lithium manganese oxide-based material useful in applications such as for pseudocapacitors and lithium ions batteries. More specifically, by synthesizing manganese oxide nanoparticles and mixing them with lithium salts, and conducting stepwise heat treatment processes under optimized conditions, a lithium manganese oxide-based material with excellent specific capacitance, having a high surface area with a small size, can be prepared.

High power lithium-ion batteries are disclosed. Such batteries may be used, for example, as the sole electric starter motor power sources for automotive vehicles powered by multi-cylinder engines with reciprocating pistons when the vehicles are to be operated in an engine start-stop mode to conserve fuel. Such batteries typically utilize non-aqueous solutions of lithium salts, such as LiPF.sub.6 or LiBF.sub.4, in combination with durable lithium intercalating electrodes. In accordance with this disclosure the performance of the battery's electrolyte and cells over a wide ambient temperature range is enhanced by a mixture of five miscible solvents formed of lower alkyl moieties. The quinary solvent mixture comprises two cyclic alkyl carbonates, two linear alkyl carbonates, and with a major portion of an alkyl ester.

Provided are a method of manufacturing a cathode active material including a first step of preparing a metal glycolate solution, a second step of mixing lithium-containing transition metal oxide particles and the metal glycolate solution and stirring in a paste state, a third step of drying the paste-state mixture, and a fourth step of performing a heat treatment on the dried mixture, a cathode active material including a metal oxide layer which is manufactured by the above method, and a secondary battery composed of a cathode including the cathode active material.

Scalable pseudocapacitive cathode materials are provided that can be effectively paired with pseudocapacitive anode materials and used to produce fast charging, long cycle lifetime lithium ion batteries. A sol-gel templating method which forms materials with dissolution resistant surfaces that can avoid capacity loss due to dissolution in high surface area nanostructured LiMn.sub.2O.sub.4 powders, is also provided. The materials have a long needle-like morphology with dominant <111> surface sites and demonstrate higher capacity and less dissolution than similarly sized materials synthesized with a different structure.

Vessels selected from crucibles, pans, open cups and saggars essentially comprising of two components, from which (A) one component being a ceramic matrix composite, and (B) the second component being from metal or alloy, and wherein component (A) is the inner one.

Embodiments of inorganic electrode materials that utilize nanostructure surface modifications via functionalization via carbonate/carboxylate to achieve superior electrochemical performance and methods of producing same.

A positive active material for a rechargeable lithium battery includes a lithium nickel-based composite oxide including a secondary particle in which a plurality of plate-shaped primary particles are agglomerated; and a lithium manganese composite oxide having at least two crystal lattice structures, wherein the secondary particle has a regular array structure in which (003) planes of the primary particles are oriented in a vertical direction with respect to the surface of the secondary particle.

Positive electrode active material particle powder includes lithium manganese oxide particle powder having Li and Mn as main components and a cubic spinel structure with an Fd-3m space group. The lithium manganese oxide particle powder is composed of secondary particles, which are aggregates of primary particles, an average particle diameter (D50) of the secondary particles being from 4 m to 20 m, and at least 80% of the primary particles exposed on surfaces of the secondary particles each have a polyhedral shape in which each (111) plane thereof is adjacent to at least one (100) plane thereof.