Fabrication of porous lithium titanate self-supporting anode for high performance lithium-ion capacitor

Abstract

Abstract Lithium titanate has unique “zero-strain” characteristics, which makes it promising for rapid energy storage lithium-ion capacitors. However, extremely low electronic conductivity and lithium ion diffusion coefficient severely limit its performance at high rate. Herein, we have constructed in situ clusters of porous lithium titanate nanoparticles on self-supporting carbon nanotube film by combining iron oxide hard template method and F127 soft template method. Due to the nano-structured particle size and the penetrating lithium ion transmission channel, a greatly improved lithium ion diffusion coefficient has been achieved, which brings significantly better electrochemical performance than dense lithium titanate. By assembling with a durable graphene foam cathode, a lithium-ion capacitor with an energy density of up to 101.8 Wh kg−1 was realized (at a power density of 436.1 W kg−1). And its capacitance retention reaches 84.8% after 5000 cycles. With such an alluring result, our work presents a novel lithium-ion capacitor system with practical application prospects.