title: The nature of lithium battery materials under oxygen evolution reaction conditions.
abstract: Transition-metal oxide and phosphate materials, commonly used for lithium battery devices, are active as oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts under alkaline and neutral solution conditions. Electrodes composed of LiCoO(2) and LiCoPO(4) exhibit progressive deactivation and activation for OER catalysis, respectively, upon potential cycling at neutral pH. The deactivation of LiCoO(2) and activation of LiCoPO(4) are coincident with changes in surface morphology and composition giving rise to spinel-like and amorphous surface structures, respectively. The amorphous surface structure of the activated LiCoPO(4) is compositionally similar to that obtained from the electrodeposition of cobalt oxide materials from phosphate-buffered electrolyte solutions. These results highlight the importance of a combined structural and electrochemical analysis of the materials surface when assessing the true nature of the OER catalyst.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Seung Woo
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Carlton
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Risch
authors.forename: Yogesh
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Surendranath
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Sho
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Furutsuki
authors.forename: Atsuo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Daniel G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Nocera
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shao-Horn