A universal cooperative assembly-directed method for coating of mesoporous TiO₂ nanoshells with enhanced lithium storage properties

摘要

TiO₂ is exceptionally useful, but it remains a great challenge to develop a universal method to coat TiO₂ nanoshells on different functional materials. We report a one-pot, low-temperature, and facile method that can rapidly form mesoporous TiO₂ shells on various inorganic, organic, and inorganic-organic composite materials, including silica-based, metal, metal oxide, organic polymer, carbon-based, and metal-organic framework nanomaterials via a cooperative assembly-directed strategy. In constructing hollow, core-shell, and yolk-shell geometries, both amorphous and crystalline TiO₂ nanoshells are demonstrated with excellent control. When used as electrode materials for lithium ion batteries, these crystalline TiO₂ nanoshells composed of very small nanocrystals exhibit remarkably long-term cycling stability over 1000 cycles. The electrochemical properties demonstrate that these TiO₂ nanoshells are promising anode materials.