Impact of titanium precursors on formation and electrochemical properties of Li4Ti5O12 anode materials for lithium-ion batteries

Abstract

This work describes comparative study on the application of Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries which were successfully prepared by sol-gel synthesis with the use of two titanium sources. One of them was anatase-type titanium dioxide (TiO2), whereas the second was tetrabutyl titanate (TBT). Both obtained LTO materials were very similar in terms of their crystallinity and purity. In turn, the sample synthetized with TBT source revealed better particle dispersibility, and its particles were slightly lower in size. These particular features resulted in higher Li+ diffusion coefficient and better kinetic of Li+ ions during charge transfer reactions for the LTO synthetized with TBT source. This reflected in specific capacitance values for both electrodes which equalled 150 mAh g−1, 120 mAh g−1, and 63 mAh g−1 for TBT-LTO and 120 mAh g−1, 80 mAh g−1, and 58 mAh g−1 for TiO2-LTO at C-rates of 1, 5, and 10 C, respectively.