Synthesis of carbon nanotube/mesoporous TiO2 coaxial nanocables with enhanced lithium ion battery performance

Well-organized hybrid nanocables consisting of carbon nanotube (CNT) core and mesoporous TiO2 sheath has been synthesized through a combined sol–gel and hydrothermal process. By using hexadecylamine as a structure directing agent, mesoporous TiO2 with thickness ranging from 40 to 70 nm was uniformly deposited on multi-walled CNTs. The resultant one dimensional CNT core/mesoporous TiO2 sheath (CNT@mesoporous TiO2) hybrid nanocables shows well-crystallized quality, porous feature and large surface area, favoring its electrochemical performance. Compared with reference TiO2 without CNTs, the CNT@mesoporous TiO2 hybrid nanocables shows largely enhanced rate performance, which could be attributed to its unique structure as well as the improvement of electronic conductivity by adding conductive CNTs.