Electrospun porous vanadium pentoxide nanotubes as a high-performance cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

•The V2O5 nanotubes are prepared by eletrospinning with using low-cost inorganic vanadium source.•The as-prepared V2O5 has porous, hollow and interconnected nanostructures.•By controlling the annealing time, a small amount of carbon can be retained in V2O5 nanotubes.•The V2O5 nanotubes with carbon exhibit excellent high rate performance and cycling stability.

In this work, porous vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanotubes have been synthesized by a simple electrospinning technique followed by an annealing process with using low-cost inorganic vanadium precursor. By controlling the annealing time at 400 °C, a small amount of polymer pyrolysis carbon can be retained which improves the conductivity of the porous V2O5 nanotubes. When evaluated as a cathode material for lithium ion batteries, the porous V2O5 nanotubes delivered capacities of 114.9, 99.7 and 79.6 mAh g−1 at 10, 20 and 50C in the voltage range of 2.5-4.0 V, respectively. Moreover, the porous V2O5 nanotubes display good cycling performance, the capacity retention is 97.4% after 200 cycles at 50C. The results indicate that fabricating nanostructured V2O5 with a porous interconnected morphology is an effective way to improve the electrochemical performance of V2O5.