An international team of researchers has demonstrated a new way to increase the robustness and energy storage capability of a particular class of "lithium-rich" cathode materials -- by using a carbon dioxide-based gas mixture to create oxygen vacancies at the material's surface. Researchers said the treatment improved the energy density -- the amount of energy stored per unit mass -- of the cathode material by up to 30 to 40 percent.

A portion of this research was conducted using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), specifically the VULCAN instrument, SNS beam line 7.

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