New synthesis route to decorate Li4Ti5O12 grains with GO flakes

Abstract

Lithium titanium oxide (Li4Ti5O12) particles were surface-decorated with 1–5% wt. of graphene oxide (GO) using new low temperature method (LTM). All the synthesized materials have been characterized by a number of methods: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The study includes the influence of the graphene oxide flakes decoration on lithium titanium oxide crystal structure. Raman analysis demonstrates a typical spinel spectra of Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) and relatively sharp D and G lines of GO structure. The XPS measurements shows the most intense peaks at the binding energy of 284.5 eV, which corresponds to CC/CC in aromatic rings of GO located on the surface of Li4Ti5O12. The peaks observed at 285.8, 286.9 and 288.3 eV belong to CO in hydroxyl and epoxy groups, carbonyl functional groups, and OCO in carboxyl groups, respectively. The correlation between the structural and morphological analysis of spinel Li4Ti5O12 structure decorated with graphene oxide (GO) flakes was examined for the first time in this work.