Hydrothermal synthesis of Li4Ti5O12 microsphere with high capacity as anode material for lithium ion batteries

Lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12) microsphere has been successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) are used to characterize the structure and morphology of the prepared Li4Ti5O12 crystallites. The results show that the as-synthesized powders exhibit outstanding rate capacities and excellent cycling performance. The first discharge capacity at 0.1 C is 172.5 mAh g−1, which is close to the theoretical capacity of 175 mAh/g. After 50 cycles, the efficiency of the synthesized Li4Ti5O12 still retains up to 92.8% at 0.1 C and 95.2% at 0.5 C of its initial value, which present a promising applications as anode materials for lithium ion batteries in hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.