Classical electrodes for Li-ion technology operate by either single-phase or two-phase Li insertion/de-insertion processes, with single-phase mechanisms presenting some intrinsic advantages with respect to various storage applications. We report the feasibility to drive the well-established two-phase room-temperature insertion process in LiFePO4 electrodes into a single-phase one by modifying the material's particle size and ion ordering. Electrodes made of LiFePO4 nanoparticles (40 nm) formed by a low-temperature precipitation process exhibit sloping voltage charge/discharge curves, characteristic of a single-phase behaviour. The presence of defects and cation vacancies, as deduced by chemical/physical analytical techniques, is crucial in accounting for our results. Whereas the interdependency of particle size, composition and structure complicate the theorists' attempts to model phase stability in nanoscale materials, it provides new opportunities for chemists and electrochemists because numerous electrode materials could exhibit a similar behaviour at the nanoscale once their syntheses have been correctly worked out.

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Thermal treatments under a very wide range of oxygen pressures were used to probe the composition and defect nature of a lithium-overstoichiometric “Li x 0 CoO2” (x 0 > 1) sample using X-ray powder diffraction, 7Li NMR, and electrochemical tests. It was found that at 900 °C, under atmospheric and elevated oxygen pressures, the lithium-overstoichiometric sample gradually transformed to stoichiometric LiCoO2 by losing excess lithium in the form of Li2O. In addition, it was shown that the defect associated with Co2+ and oxygen deficiency as reported by Gorshkov et al. and Karelina et al. had a different NMR signature than that present in Li-overstoichiometric samples. Therefore, it is believed that oxygen vacancies are present but Co2+ ions are not present in Li x 0 CoO2 (x 0 > 1). This leads to a formula [Li]interslab[CoIII 1 - 3tCo3+(IS) 2tLit]slab[O2 - t], involving an intermediate spin configuration for 2t Co3+ ions in a square-based pyramidal site. This new model was supported by the NMR and magnetic data of the lithium-overstoichiometric sample and its deintercalated compounds. The effect of the defect on the end-of-discharge voltage profile during cycling was also discussed.