Electrochemical properties of citric acid-assisted combustion synthesis of Li4Ti5O12 adopting Cr by the solid-state reaction process

Abstract

The effects of Cr3+ doping and citric acid combustion on the electrochemical properties of Li4Ti5O12 were systematically investigated. The solid-state reaction process was used to synthesize four samples marked as LTO, C-LTO, LT-Cr-O, and C-LT-Cr-O, respectively. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques were employed to study their structures and morphologies. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) tests, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis, and charge–discharge cycling were performed to study their electrochemical performance. The experimental results showed that the C-LT-Cr-O sample exhibited the advantages both of the Cr3+ doping and the citric acid combustion, presented high ordered morphology and high phase purity, and displayed a discharge capacity of 101.3 mAh g−1 with about 91.8 % capacity retention after 1000 cycles at 10C discharge rate. Therefore, the C-LT-Cr-O material is a promising anode material to be used in lithium ion batteries.