Hydrothermal synthesis and rate capacity studies of Li3V2(PO4)3 nanorods as cathode material for lithium-ion batteries

It is an effective method by synthesizing one-dimensional nanostructure to improve the rate performances of cathode materials for Li-ion batteries. In this paper, Li3V2(PO4)3 nanorods were successfully prepared by hydrothermal reaction method. The structure, composition and shape of the prepared were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scan electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM), respectively. The data indicate the as-synthesis powders are defect-rich nanorods and the sizes are the length of several hundreds of nanometers to 1 μm and the diameter of about 60 nm. The preferential growth direction of the prepared material was the [1 2 0]. The electrodes consisting of the Li3V2(PO4)3 nanorods show the better discharge capacities at high rates over a potential range of 3.0–4.6 V. These results can be attributed to the shorter distance of electron transport and the fact that ion diffusion in the electrode material is limited by the nanorod radius. All these results indicate that the resulting Li3V2(PO4)3 nanorods are promising cathode materials in lithium-ion batteries.