Excess capacity on compound phases of Li2FeTiO4 composite cathode materials synthesized by hydrothermal reaction using optional titanium sources to boost battery performance

Abstract

Li2FeTiO4 composites have been produced using commercial LiAC, FeCl2 and different titanium sources by hydrothermal synthesis (HS) at 175 °C and subsequent annealing at 700 °C. Impure phase TiO2, Fe2O3 and FeTiO4 were detected out among the Li2FeTiO4 composites with different titanium sources. Micron and nano-sized particles of Li2FeTiO4 were prepared from various titanium raw materials, with nano-sized particles predominating when titanium raw materials were layered hydrogen titanate nanowire (H2Ti3O7NW, HTO-NW) and titanium oxide nanotubes (TiO2NB). The Li2FeTiO4 composites synthesized by HTO-NW shows a primary particle size of 50−200 nm of high crystallinity staggered with undissolved nanowire with a diameter size of about 100 nm. The samples using one-dimensional nanometer titanium oxide (TiO2 NB) as the raw material can get a super high initial discharge capacity of 367.8 mAh/g at the rate of C/10 and excellent cycling stability. The selection of raw materials and adopting multi-phase modification can be considered as an effective strategy to improve the electro-chemical properties of Li2FeTiO4 composite cathode materials for the lithium secondary battery.