Facile Synthesis of Carbon-Coated Li3VO4 Anode Material and its Application in Full Cells

Li3VO4 is a promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries, but suffers from low electronic conductivity. Here we demonstrated a facile solid-state method to synthesize carbon-coated Li3VO4 (LVO/C) to enhance its electronic conductivity and electrochemical performance. The LVO/C composites exhibit preferable specific capacity, desirable cycle performance and suitable rate performance than the carbon-free Li3VO4. A high reversible capacity of 456 mAh/g and 400 mAh/g can be maintained up to 100 cycles and 500 cycles at 1 C (92.2 % and 80 % retention of the second cycle of discharge capacity, respectively). Coupled with conventional cathodes, the fabricated full cells can deliver higher energy density than their commercial counterparts using Li4Ti5O12 anodes and exhibit much more stable cycle performance than full cells using graphite anodes. The LiFePO4-LVO/C full cell delivers an excellent cycling stability with capacity retention of 99 % vs. the second cycle after 100 cycles at 1 C. The LiNi0.8Co0.1Mn0.1O2-LVO/C full cell delivers a maximum energy density of about 300 Wh/kg.