Surfactant-free nonaqueous synthesis of lithium titanium oxide (LTO) nanostruetures for lithium ion battery applications

摘要

A one-pot template-free solvothermal synthesis of crystalline Li4Ti5O_(12) nanostruetures based on the "benzyl alcohol route" is introduced. The 1-2 urn sized nanostructured spherical particles are constituted of nanocrystallites in the size range of a few nm. This is the first report showing that crystalline Li4Ti5O_(12) can be directly obtained by soft chemistry solution routes. The as-synthesized crystalline nanostruetures show good lithium intercalation/deintercalation performances at high rates (up to 30 C) and good cycling stabilities. Annealing the nanostruetures at 750.°C improves the performance, which approaches the theoretical capacity of Li4Ti5O_(12) with no noticeable (less than 5%) capacity loss after 200 cycles.