The layered Li-rich Li[Li0.2Mn0.54Ni0.13Co0.13]O-2 cathode material is successfully synthesized via an optimized sol-gel method. With oxalic acid instead of citric acid as the chelating agent, the amount of chelating agent used in this experiment is only 36% of the traditional weight. Segmented sintering method is adopted to decrease the calcination temperature and reduce the calcination time. X-ray diffraction spectrometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are used to characterize the structure and micromorphology of the material. Meanwhile, charge-discharge test, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) are employed to explore its electrochemical performance. Our results demonstrate that Li[Li0.2Mn0.54Ni0 13Co0.13]O-2 electrode delivers a high reversible capacity of 277.3 mAhg(-1) and keeps excellent capacity retention of 98.4% after 50 cycles when tested at a 0.1 C rate within the potential range of 2.0-4.8 V at room temperature. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.