RESEARCH ARTICLE

Construction of nitrogen-doped carbon cladding LiMn2O4 film electrode with enhanced stability for electrochemically selective extraction of lithium ions

  • Jiahui Ren 1 ,
  • Yongping He 2 ,
  • Haidong Sun 2 ,
  • Rongzi Zhang 2 ,
  • Juan Li 2 ,
  • Wenbiao Ma 1 ,
  • Zhong Liu 3 ,
  • Jun Li 3 ,
  • Xiao Du , 1 ,
  • Xiaogang Hao , 1
Expand
  • 1. College of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
  • 2. Academia Sinica, Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Group Company Limited, Golmud 816000, China
  • 3. Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China
duxiao@tyut.edu.cn
xghao@tyut.edu.cn

Received date: 20 Mar 2023

Accepted date: 28 May 2023

Published date: 15 Dec 2023

Copyright

2023 Higher Education Press

Abstract

Reducing the dissolution of Mn from LiMn2O4 (LMO) and enhancing the stability of film electrodes are critical and challenging for Li+ ions selective extraction via electrochemically switched ion exchange technology. In this work, we prepared a nitrogen-doped carbon cladding LMO (C-N@LMO) by polymerization of polypyrrole and high-temperature annealing in the N2 gas to achieve the above purpose. The modified C-N@LMO film electrode exhibited lower Mn dissolution and better cyclic stability than the LMO film electrode. The dissolution ratio of Mn from the C-N@LMO film electrode decreased by 42% compared to the LMO film electrode after 10 cycles. The cladding layer not only acted as a protective layer but also functioned as a conductive shell, accelerating the migration rate of Li+ ions. The intercalation equilibrium time of the C-N@LMO film electrode reached within an hour during the extraction of Li+ ions, which was 33% less compared to the pure LMO film electrode. Meanwhile, the C-N@LMO film electrode retained evident selectivity toward Li+ ions, and the separation factor was 118.38 for Li+ toward Mg2+ in simulated brine. Therefore, the C-N@LMO film electrode would be a promising candidate for the recovery of Li+ ions from salt lakes.

Cite this article

Jiahui Ren , Yongping He , Haidong Sun , Rongzi Zhang , Juan Li , Wenbiao Ma , Zhong Liu , Jun Li , Xiao Du , Xiaogang Hao . Construction of nitrogen-doped carbon cladding LiMn2O4 film electrode with enhanced stability for electrochemically selective extraction of lithium ions[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2023 , 17(12) : 2050 -2060 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-023-2343-7

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U21A20303, 22078217 and U20A20141).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-023-2343-7 and is accessible for authorized users.
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