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Low-nickel cathode chemistry for sustainable and high-energy lithium-ion batteries

Nature Sustainability volume 9, pages 317–327 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

The transition to sustainable energy storage demands lithium-ion batteries with high energy density and reduced reliance on critical metals such as nickel (Ni), yet current strategies to increase capacity have largely depended on raising Ni content, leading to escalating supply risks, rising costs and sustainability concerns. More critically, Ni-rich cathodes suffer from rapid electrochemical degradation driven by structural instability, creating an insurmountable trade-off between capacity and cycle life. Here we introduce a low-Ni chemistry cathode, Li(Li0.05Ni0.57Mn0.31Co0.07)O2, with a radial phase integration design that overcomes these limitations, enabling a remarkable Ni usage reduction (Ni < 0.6) while demonstrating high capacity (215 mAh g−1) and markedly improved cyclability (~97% retention over 400 cycles) compared to conventional high-Ni cathodes (Ni = 0.8). Advanced X-ray and electron microscopy analyses reveal that the designed cathode exhibits a highly reversible oxygen anionic redox, benefiting from a structurally stable surface and minimizing irreversible phase transitions. Moreover, the integrated structure substantially mitigates lattice strain and improves mechanical stability even under harsh conditions. This advance offers a general design principle for developing next-generation cathodes that combine resource efficiency with long-term electrochemical reliability.

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Fig. 1: Structure and composition characterization of LNC cathode.
Fig. 2: Electrochemical measurements of LNC and Ni-rich NMC series cathodes.
Fig. 3: Structural evolution during charge and discharge process.
Fig. 4: Chemical state change during cycling.
Fig. 5: Morphological and structural stability after long-term cycling.

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All data are available in the main text or the Supplementary Information, which is also available from the corresponding authors upon request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work gratefully acknowledges support from the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, an Office of Science user facility, supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source (11-ID-C), a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357. This research used resources of the Advanced Light Source, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Use of the National Synchrotron Light Source II (3-ID, 7-BM, 18-ID and 28-ID) is supported by the US Department of Energy, an Office of Science user facility operated by Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract no. DE-SC0012704.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Weiyuan Huang, Alvin Dai, Jing Wang, Steve Trask, Khalil Amine & Tongchao Liu

  2. Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Zengqing Zhuo & Jinghua Guo

  3. Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Jinghao Huang, Tao Zhou, Xiao-Min Lin, Hari Adhikari & Jianguo Wen

  4. National Synchrotron Light source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Xianghui Xiao, Lu Ma, Gihan Kwon & Xiaojing Huang

  5. Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Rachid Amine

  6. X-ray Science Division, Advanced Photon Sources, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

    Tianyi Li

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Contributions

W.H., T. Liu and K.A. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. W.H. synthesized all the materials. W.H., A.D., R.A. and S.T. conducted electrochemical measurements. Z.Z. and J.G. conducted the mRIXS. J.H., T.Z., H.A. and J. Wen carried out the TEM results. X.-M.L. carried out the ICP-OES. W.H., J. Wang, G.K. and T. Li performed synchrotron HEXRD and PDF. W.H. and L.M. performed XAS. W.H. and X.X. conducted the TXM. X.H. conducted the XRF. W.H., T. Liu and K.A. wrote the paper, and all authors edited the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Khalil Amine or Tongchao Liu.

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Competing interests

T. Liu and K.A. report one US non-provisional patent application filed by the Argonne National Laboratory, patent application no. 18/105,469. The patent is related to the composition and structure design reported in this work. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Weibo Hua, Laura Simonelli and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Huang, W., Zhuo, Z., Dai, A. et al. Low-nickel cathode chemistry for sustainable and high-energy lithium-ion batteries. Nat Sustain 9, 317–327 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01704-8

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