Hydrothermal Synthesis of Li4Ti5O12/TiO2 Nano-composite As High Performance Anode Material for Li-Ion Batteries

•Dual phase Li4Ti5O12/TiO2 nano-composite is synthesized by a gacilehydrothermal approach.•The dual phase formation mechanism is proposed by the inhomogeneous Li distribution.•The phase composition can be tuned by the solution composition.

A facile hydrothermal approach has been developed to synthesize the nanostructured dual phase Li4Ti5O12/TiO2 composite. The fabrication process simply involves the hydrothermal treatment of tetrabutyl titanate with LiOH in glycerol-water solution and a subsequent calcination procedure. The calcination treatment at 500 °C leads to the phase evolution from Li1.81H0.19Ti2O5•nH2O to Li4Ti5O12/TiO2 composite with a particle size of about 30 nm. It is found that glycerol as chelating agent plays an important role in the formation of TiO2. The Li4Ti5O12 and anatase TiO2 nano-composite exhibits rich hierarchical pores and a specific surface area of 91.88 m2 g−1, delivers ultrahigh rate performance of over 150 mA h g−1 at 20 C, as well as superior capacity retention of 151.4 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles at 1 C. It is therefore concluded that Li4Ti5O12/TiO2 nano-composite is a promising candidate for applications in high rate lithium ion batteries.

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