Al-contaminated Ta-substituted Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZ:Ta), synthesized via solid-state reaction, and Al-free Ta-substituted Li7La3Zr2O12, fabricated by hot-press sintering (HP-LLZ:Ta), have relative densities of 92.7% and 99.0%, respectively. Impedance spectra show the total conductivity of LLZ:Ta to be 0.71 mS cm(-1) at 30 °C and that of HP-LLZ:Ta to be 1.18 mS cm(-1). The lower total conductivity for LLZ:Ta than HP-LLZ:Ta was attributed to the higher grain boundary resistance and lower relative density of LLZ:Ta, as confirmed by their microstructures. Constant direct current measurements of HP-LLZ:Ta with a current density of 0.5 mA cm(-2) suggest that the short circuit formation was neither due to the low relative density of the samples nor the reduction of Li-Al glassy phase at grain boundaries. TEM, EELS, and MAS NMR were used to prove that the short circuit was from Li dendrite formation inside HP-LLZ:Ta, which took place along the grain boundaries. The Li dendrite formation was found to be mostly due to the inhomogeneous contact between LLZ solid electrolyte and Li electrodes. By flatting the surface of the LLZ:Ta pellets and using thin layers of Au buffer to improve the contact between LLZ:Ta and Li electrodes, the interface resistance could be dramatically reduced, which results in short-circuit-free cells when running a current density of 0.5 mA cm(-2) through the pellets. Temperature-dependent stepped current density galvanostatic cyclings were also carried out to determine the critical current densities for the short circuit formation. The short circuit that still occurred at higher current density is due to the inhomogeneous dissolution and deposition of metallic Li at the interfaces of Li electrodes and LLZ solid electrolyte when cycling the cell at large current densities.

As possible electrolyte materials for all-solid-state Na-ion batteries (NIBs), scandium-substituted Na 3 Zr 2 (SiO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 ) in the structure of NASICONs (Na super-ionic conductors) have received hardly any attention so far, although among all the trivalent cations, Sc 3+ might be the most suitable substitution ion for Na 3 Zr 2 (SiO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 ) because the ionic radius of Sc 3+ (74.5 pm) is the closest to that of Zr 4+ (72.0 pm). In this study, a solution-assisted solid-state reaction (SASSR) method is described and a series of scandium-substituted Na 3 Zr 2 (SiO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 ) with the formula of Na 3+x Sc x Zr 2-x (SiO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 ) (NSZSPx, 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.6) have been prepared. This synthesis route can be applied for powder preparation on a large scale and at low cost. With increasing degrees of scandium substitution, the total conductivity of the samples also increases. An optimum total Na-ion conductivity of 4.0 × 10 -3 S cm -1 at 25 °C is achieved by Na 3.4 Sc 0.4 Zr 1.6 (SiO 4 ) 2 (PO 4 ) (NSZSP0.4), which is the best value of all reported polycrystalline Na-ion conductors. The possible reasons for such high conductivity are discussed.

The reactivity of mixtures of high voltage spinel cathode materials LiNiMnO, LiFeMnO, and LiCoMnO cosintered with LiAlTi(PO) and LiLaZrTaO electrolytes is studied by thermal analysis using X-ray-diffraction and differential thermoanalysis and thermogravimetry coupled with mass spectrometry. The results are compared with predicted decomposition reactions from first-principles calculations. Decomposition of the mixtures begins at 600 °C, significantly lower than the decomposition temperature of any component, especially the electrolytes. For the cathode + LiLaZrTaO mixtures, lithium and oxygen from the electrolyte react with the cathodes to form highly stable LiMnO and then decompose to form stable and often insulating phases such as LaZrO, LaO, LaTaO, TiO, and LaMnO which are likely to increase the interfacial impedance of a cathode composite. The decomposition reactions are identified with high fidelity by first-principles calculations. For the cathode + LiAlTi(PO) mixtures, the Mn tends to oxidize to MnO or MnO, supplying lithium to the electrolyte for the formation of LiPO and metal phosphates such as AlPO and LiMPO (M = Mn, Ni). The results indicate that high temperature cosintering to form dense cathode composites between spinel cathodes and oxide electrolytes will produce high impedance interfacial products, complicating solid state battery manufacturing.

Bulk-type SSLB based on LLZ:Ta achieves high specific areal capacity and operational current densities.

The lack of suitable candidate electrolyte materials for practical application limits the development of all-solid-state Na-ion batteries.

Lithium aluminium titanium phosphate (LATP) belongs to one of the most promising solid electrolytes.Besides sufficiently high electrochemical stability, its use in lithium-based all-solid-state batteries crucially depends on the ionic transport properties. While many impedance studies can be found in literature that report on overall ion conductivities, a discrimination of bulk and grain boundary electrical responses via conductivity spectroscopy has rarely been reported so far. Here, we took advantage of impedance measurements that were carried out at low temperatures to separate bulk contributions from the grain boundary responses. It turned out that bulk ion conductivity is by at least three orders of magnitude higher than ion transport across the grain boundary regions. At temperatures well below ambient long-range Li ion dynamics is governed by activation energies ranging from 0.26 to 0.29 eV depending on the sintering conditions. As an example, at temperatures as low as 173 K, the bulk ion conductivity, measured in N 2 inert gas atmosphere, is in the order of 8.1 Â 10 À6 S cm À1 . Extrapolating this value to room temperature yields ca. 3.4 Â 10 À3 S cm À1 at 293 K. Interestingly, exposing the dense pellets to air atmosphere over a long period of time causes a significant decrease of bulk ion transport.This process can be reversed if the phosphate is calcined at elevated temperatures again.

The realization of large powerful all-solid-state batteries is still hampered by the availability of environmentally friendly and low-cost Li ion conductors that can easily be produced on a large scale and with high reproducibility. Advanced solid electrolytes benefit from fast ion-selective transport and non-flammability, but they may have low electrochemical stability with respect to Li metal. Sol-gel-synthesized lithium titanium aluminum phosphate Li(1.5)Al(0.5)Ti(1.5)(PO4)3 (LATP), which was prepared via a new synthesis route taking advantage of an annealing step at relatively low temperatures, has the potential to become one of the major players in this field although it may suffer from reduction upon direct contact with metallic lithium. Its ion dynamics is, however, as yet poorly understood. In the present study, (7)Li nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to monitor the key Li jump processes on the atomic scale. NMR relaxation clearly reveals heterogeneous dynamics comprising distinct ultra-fast and slower diffusion processes. The high Li ion self-diffusion coefficients deduced originate from a rapid Li exchange with activation energies as low as 0.16 eV which means that sol-gel synthesized LATP is superior to other solid electrolytes. Our NMR results fully support recent theoretical investigations on the underlying diffusion mechanism, indicating that to rapidly jump from site to site, the ions use interstitial sites connected by low-energy barriers in LATP.

Lithium and sodium (Na) mixed polyanion solid electrolytes for all-solid-state batteries display some of the highest ionic conductivities reported to date. However, the effect of polyanion mixing on the ion-transport properties is still not fully understood. Here, we focus on Na1+xZr2SixP3−xO12 (0 ≤ x ≤ 3) NASICON electrolyte to elucidate the role of polyanion mixing on the Na-ion transport properties. Although NASICON is a widely investigated system, transport properties derived from experiments or theory vary by orders of magnitude. We use more than 2000 distinct ab initio-based kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to map the compositional space of NASICON over various time ranges, spatial resolutions and temperatures. Via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements on samples with different sodium content, we find that the highest ionic conductivity (i.e., about 0.165 S cm–1 at 473 K) is experimentally achieved in Na3.4Zr2Si2.4P0.6O12, in line with simulations (i.e., about 0.170 S cm–1 at 473 K). The theoretical studies indicate that doped NASICON compounds (especially those with a silicon content x ≥ 2.4) can improve the Na-ion mobility compared to undoped NASICON compositions.