Carbon-decorated Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 /rutile TiO 2 mesoporous microspheres with nanostructures as high-performance anode materials in lithium-ion batteries

Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 /rutile TiO 2 (LTO-RT) composites with Li/Ti molar ratios of 3:5, 4:5 and 4.5:5 have been successfully synthesized with TiO 2 microspheres as a precursor. Furthermore, C-coated LTO-RT mesoporous microspheres with a molar ratio of 4:5 (C/4-5-LTO-RT) have been prepared based on the LTO-RT composite through a hydrothermal method and high temperature calcination. After various characterizations, it is found that carbon plays a pivotal role in retaining the porous nanostructure of the original as-prepared TiO 2 precursor in the overall process. Substantially, C/4-5-LTO-RT still shows a high specific surface area of 63.70 m 2 g −1 even after high temperature treatment at 800 °C. Since the porous nanostructure offers open and direct channels for the diffusion of Li ions and electrons and carbon decoration also efficiently improves the electrical conductivity, the sample of C/4-5-LTO-RT shows an e...

Lin Gao, Rujun Liu, Hao Hu, Guojian Li and Ying Yu

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