Spray Drying-Assisted Synthesis of Li3VO4/C/CNTs Composites for High-Performance Lithium Ion Battery Anodes

Abstract

Li3VO4 is a promising insertion anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), but has the drawback of low electronic conductivity. Here, we have developed a facile spray drying route to synthesize Li3VO4/C/CNTs (carbon nanotubes) composites with hollow spherical morphology. In this composite, Li3VO4 nanocrystals are interconnected by CNTs to form an integrated electronic conducting particle. Owing to the high specific surface and hierarchical porous structure, Li3VO4/C/CNTs composites also possess higher apparent Li+ ions diffusion coefficient. The resulting Li3VO4/C/CNTs composites exhibit much better rate capability than the pristine Li3VO4. A high reversible capacity of 272 mAh g−1 can be maintained up to 500 cycles at 10 C (86.1% retention of the 2nd charge capacity). Moreover, the synthetic method is facile and scalable, thus as-prepared LVO/C/CNTs composites can be a promising anode material for high-safety LIBs.