Fabrication of Li4Ti5O12@CN composite with enhanced rate properties

Abstract

Folic acid is first time applied as a carbon-nitrogen precursor to fabricate Li4Ti5O12@CN composites via ball milling Nano-TiO2, Li2CO3 and folic acid with ethanol as solvent, and then followed by heating treatment in argon. XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, charge-discharge test and EIS are used to evaluate the influence of N-doped carbon coating on its structure, morphologies and electrochemical property. It is demonstrated that the N-doped carbon coated Li4Ti5O12 composite exhibits superior high-rate performance compared with pure Li4Ti5O12. It possesses a high discharge capacity of 174, 165 mAh g-1 at 0.5 and 10 C, respectively. Additionally, an initial specific capacity of 96.2% is obtained after 200 cycles at 10 C. The remarkable performance might be put down to the N-doped carbon layer providing efficiently electron conductive network and nanosized decreasing lithium ion diffusion path.