Rapid synthesis of garnet-type Li7La3Zr2O12 solid electrolyte with superior electrochemical performance

Li7La3Zr2O12-based garnet-type solid electrolytes are promising candidates for use in all-solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs). However, their potential in large-scale commercial applications is largely hindered by the time/energy-consuming and lithium-wasting synthetic method which typically needs a long-duration high temperature solid state reaction process. Herein we invent a fast preparation route that involves a short-period thermal reaction (1100 °C for 10 min) in laboratory muffle furnaces following by conventional hot pressing technique to get almost fully dense (Al, Ga, Ta, Nb)-doped garnet-type electrolytes with high phase purity (>99.9 %). The large and compact grains, low porosity and high phase purities of garnet ceramic electrolytes synthesized in this study ensure superior electrochemical performance. Particularly, Ga-doped cubic Li7La3Zr2O12 shows extremely low Ea values (0.17−0.18 eV) and record-high lithium ionic conductivities (>2 × 10−3 S cm-1 at 25 °C).