Surface-to-Bulk Redox Coupling through Thermally Driven Li Redistribution in Li- and Mn-Rich Layered Cathode Materials

Li- and Mn-rich (LMR) layered cathode materials have demonstrated impressive capacity and specific energy density thanks to their intertwined redox centers including transition metal cations and oxygen anions. Although tremendous efforts have been devoted to the investigation of the electrochemically driven redox evolution in LMR cathode at ambient temperature, their behavior under a mildly elevated temperature (up to ∼100 °C), with or without electrochemical driving force, remains largely unexplored. Here we show a systematic study of the thermally driven surface-to-bulk redox coupling effect in charged Li1.2Ni0.15Co0.1Mn0.55O2. We for the first time observed a charge transfer between the bulk oxygen anions and the surface transition metal cations under ∼100 °C, which is attributed to the thermally driven redistribution of Li ions. This finding highlights the nonequilibrium state and dynamic nature of the LMR material at deeply delithiated state upon a mild temperature perturbation.