SYNTHESIS OF LITHIUM TITANATE USING HYDROTHERMAL METHOD AND THE EFFECT OF SINTERING TEMPERATURE ON ITS NANOSTRUCTURE. Lithium titanate is one of the compounds used as anode material in lithium ion batteries. This compound is synthesized using hydrothermal method at 120oC for 15 h bymixing TiO2 anatase and lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) as a source of lithium followed by sintering at 550, 650 and 750 oC to obtain the LTO with spinel crystalline phase. The TiO2 anatase in this research was made by the sol-gel method with calcination temperature at 300oC for 2 hours. The obtained compounds were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET), FT-IR spectroscopy and field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). The FE-SEM micrograph results show the compounds of lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12), Li2TiO3 and the remainder of TiO2 rutile with irregular morphological structures as agglomerates. The XRD and BET results shows that sintering at 550 oC produced average crystallite size of 33.45 nm and a surface area of 6.65 m2/g, dominated by TiO2 rutile. Further, the sintering temperature of 650 oC produced average crystallite sizes of 27.70 nm, surface area of 1.91 m2/g, dominated by TiO2 rutile. Finally, the temperature of 750 oC produced average crystallite sizes of 52.06 nm, dominated by lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12). The FT-IR results confirms the presence of LTO spinel in the sintered product. Finally, the aim of this work to obtain the crystallite size below 100 nm has been achieved.
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