Cathodic performance of V2O5 nanowires and reduced graphene oxide composites for lithium ion batteries

• Fabrication of polycrystalline V2O5 nanowires by electrospinning process.
• Preparation of reduced graphene oxide and V2O5 nanowires composite.
• Physical and electrochemical properties of composite.
• Higher cathodic performance of the composite than pure V2O5 nanowires.

In this study, vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanowires (NWs) with a diameter of 100–200 nm and a length of up to several micrometers as cathode for lithium ion batteries are synthesize using an electrospinning method. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and V2O5 NWs (GVO) composites are form by wet mixing the electrospun V2O5 NWs and rGO. Surface morphologies, microstructure and elemental mapping, and chemical bonding states of the composites are characterize. The initial and 60 cycles discharge capacities of GVO composite composed of 1 wt% rGO show up to 225 mAh g−1 and 125 mAh g−1, even higher than pure V2O5 NWs, when the lithium ion battery cycled between 2.0 and 4.0 V with a rate of 0.2 C, because of highly conductive rGO. The GVO composite could be promising as a high performance cathode for lithium ion batteries.