Fabrication of Li + ‐Conductive Li 2 ZrO 3 ‐Based Shell Encapsulated LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 Microspheres as High‐Rate and Long‐Life Cathode Materials for Li‐Ion Batteries

Ternary layered LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 microspheres are functionally surface‐modified with a fast‐Li + ‐conductive Li 2 ZrO 3 ‐based shell through a facile synthetic strategy based on an infiltrative pre‐coating treatment combined with a single‐step post‐sintering process. Owing to the complete nanoscale Li 2 ZrO 3 shell coating, which has a 3D diffusion path for Li + , the resultant coated LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 microspheres manifest remarkably enhanced rate capability and cycling performance as cathode materials both at room and elevated temperature when tested in a half Li‐ion battery cell. Moreover, the combination of the coated LiNi 0.5 Co 0.2 Mn 0.3 O 2 cathode and a commercial graphite anode into a full cell not only delivers a remarkable specific capacity of 140 mAh g −1 under 1 C, but also exhibits an excellent capacity retention of 78 % with a high coulombic efficiency of over 99.5 % after 100 cycles, which demonstrates its application as a promising electrochemical device for energy storage and conversion.