  Polycrystalline LiMnBO3 is a promising cathode material for Li-ion batteries.
In this work, we investigated the thermal, structural and electrical properties
of glassy and nanocrystallized materials having the same chemical composition.
The original glass was obtained via a standard meltquenching method. SEM and
7Li solid-state NMR indicate that it contains a mixture of two distinct glassy
phases. The results suggest that the electrical conductivity of the glass is
dominated by the ionic one. The dc conductivity of initial glass was estimated
to be in the order of 10-18 S.cm-1 at room temperature. The thermal
nanocrystallization of the glass produces a nanostructured glass-ceramics
containing MnBO3 and LiMnBO3 phases. The electric conductivity of this
glass-ceramics is increased by 6 orders of magnitude, compared to the starting
material at room temperature. Compared to other manganese and borate containing
glasses reported in the literature, the conductivity of the nanostructured
glass ceramics is higher than that of the previously reported glassy materials.
Such improved conductivity stems from the facilitated electronic transport
along the grain boundaries.
