A new and effective approach for Fe2V4O13 nanoparticles synthesis: Evaluation of electrochemical performance as cathode for lithium secondary batteries

The Fe2V4O13 is considered as one of the most promising cathode materials for next generation secondary batteries owing to its high specific capacity and energy density. However, the synthesis of pure Fe2V4O13 is difficult because of complicated Fe2O3-V2O5 phase diagram. Thus, in this paper, a facile solution combustion method which operates relatively at low temperature was proposed to synthesize impurity free Fe2V4O13 nanoparticles. The selection of fuel, oxidizer/fuel (O/F) ratio and temperature on the formation of impurity free Fe2V4O13 has been investigated. The optimum temperature and time for the preparation of impurity free Fe2V4O13 nanoparticles was found to be 350 °C/1 h. The synthesized Fe2V4O13 nanoparticles exhibit monoclinic phase with high surface area of 36 m2/g. The prepared Fe2V4O13 nanoparticles were tested as cathode material for lithium secondary battery and charge discharge results show that the 154 mAh·g−1 is retained after 50 cycle.