investigations on conductivity of nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide/li2fesio4 cathode material prepared by microwave-assisted method for lithium-ion batteries

Li2fesi04 is a promising cathode active material for lithium-ion batteries due to its significant theoretical capacity (332 mahg-1). nevertheless, its practical electrochemical performance faces significant hurdles due to low electron conductivity. in the research, a simple solid-state technique was used to synthesize the high-purity cathode material li2fesi04. additionally, nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide nanosheets were fabricated using a household microwave-assisted process and then selectively deposited to coat the active cathode material to increase conductivity and significantly improve electrocatalysis. the properties of the as-prepared nanosheets and li2fesi04/ nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites are studied using x-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, raman spectrometry, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy techniques. the study investigated the influence of different amounts of as-prepared nanosheet coatings on the electrical conductivity of the li2fesi04 by comparing their band gap energy value. accordingly, a lower band gap, indicates higher and better electronic conductivity in the cathode of lithium-ion batteries. therefore, diffusion reflectance spectroscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to determine the band gap size and conductivity. studies show that coating li2fesi04 particles with only 5 wt% nitrogen-doped nanosheets reduced the bandgap energy value by about 0.78 ev and increased the electrical conductivity by 54.31%. it is concluded that li2fesi04/ nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites can be a promising candidate as a high-performance cathode material for lithium-ion batteries.