Boron-doped TiO2 anode materials for high-rate lithium ion batteries

•Boron(B)-doped TiO2 materials are successfully synthesized by a sol–gel method.•Boron(B)-doped TiO2 materials have an excellent electrochemical performance.•Boron(B)-doped TiO2 with high B-dopant concentration shows a high capacity of 119.4 mA h g−1 at 10 C in the 100 cycles.

Boron(B)-doped TiO2 (BT) materials are synthesized through a simple one-pot process using a sol–gel method, and are employed as anode materials in Li-ion batteries. The increase of B-dopant concentration up to 10.4 wt% in BT samples increases the interplanar spacing between TiO2 lattices from 3.33 Å to 4.33 Å, and the BET surface area from 27.7 m2 g−1 to 90.6 m2 g−1. Additionally, the BT sample containing a relatively large amount of B possesses cylindrical pores that are favorable for lithium-ion transfer, leading to the highest diffusion coefficient. Consequently, the BT anodes with high B-dopant concentration exhibit significantly-improved cyclic capacities at 100 cycles: 166.9 mA h g−1 at 1 C and 119.4 mA h g−1 at 10 C, whereas the non-doped BT sample, TiO2, exhibits 107.7 mA h g−1 at 1 C and 19.9 mA h g−1 at 10 C at 100 cycles.