Nickel-rich cathode material has received marked attention as an advanced cathode material, however, its inferior surface property limits the achievement of high performance in lithium-ion batteries. We propose the use of a bi-functional additive of triphenyl borate (TPB) for improvement of the safety and electrochemical performance of Ni-rich cathode materials. First, TPB removes residual lithium species from the Ni-rich cathode surface via chemical binding with anion part of residual lithium species, and effectively reduces swelling behavior of the cell. Second, TPB creates effective cathode electrolyte interphase (CEI) layers on the electrode surface by an electrochemical reaction, and greatly enhances the surface stability of the nickel-rich cathode. This work demonstrate that a cell cycled with the TPB additive exhibits a remarkable retention of 88.6% at 60 degrees C after 100 cycles for an NCM721 cathode material. We suggest a working mechanism for TPB based on systematic analyses, including in-situ and ex-situ experiments.