High catalytic activity of anatase titanium dioxide for decomposition of electrolyte solution in lithium ion battery

It has been indicated that anatase TiO2 is a promising anode material for lithium ion power battery from many previous researches. Whereas, in this work, we find that the anatase TiO2, when used as an anode for lithium ion battery, has high catalytic activity to initiate the decarboxylation reaction of electrolyte solution, resulting in the large generation of sole gaseous component, CO2. The ROLi species and the new phase of flake-like Li2TiF6 material are the main reaction products between anatase TiO2 and LiPF6 based electrolyte solution. This work provides important and urgent information that the surface chemistry of anatase TiO2 used as the anode material of lithium ion battery must be modified to suppress its catalytic activity for the decomposition of solvents.