The cooling rate after annealing treatment was proved to be important for the structure and electrochemical performances of the layered oxide 0.3Li 2 MnO 3 · 0.7LiNi 0.5 Mn 0.5 O 2 material, which has been synthesized using a sol-gel method. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nondestructive nano-computed tomography (nano-CT), and BrunauerEmmett-Teller (BET) surface area measurement were used to characterize the structure and micromorphology of the material. It was demonstrated that the material quenched by liquid nitrogen (AN-material) showed less defects in structure and larger specific surface area than the material cooled naturally (AF-material). Electrochemical measurement showed that the ANmaterial exhibited better electrochemical performance as cathode candidate for lithium-ion batteries. The initial discharge capacity and coulombic efficiency reached 277.4 mAh g −1 and 84.1 % for AN-material, while 257.1 mAh g −1 and 78.4 % for AF-material. In addition, the AN-material also exhibited lower charge transfer resistance than AF-material.