Journal of Material Sciences & Engineering

Synthesis and Evaluation of Olivine Nanosheets from Layered Ammonium Iron Phosphate Monohydrate

Abstract

Masakazu Togo and Atsushi Nakahira

The synthesis of novel microstructured LiFePO₄ with advantageous nanosheets for Li ion conductivity was attempted. Using layered NH₄FePO₄•H₂O as raw material, LiFePO₄ nanosheet was synthesized by the hydrothermal process in LiCl solution. Prepared NH₄FePO₄•H₂O was several tens micrometer sized sheet with about 200 nm in thickness. As Li ion resource, various LiCl solution like deionized water, ethanol, and ethylene glycol were prepared through subsequent hydrothermal process and the effect of a kind of solvents for LiCl solution on the microstructure of products treated by the hydrothermal process was investigated for LiFePO₄ nanosheets synthesis. The products of LiFePO₄ nanosheet were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR and ICP. Regardless of a kind of solvents, LiFePO₄ nanosheet was composed of arranged nano-blocks, although the size and morphology of nano-blocks was different in each solvent.