In Situ Synthesis of Porous Plate-Like Li4Ti5O12 Lithium-Ion Battery Anode with Advanced Li+ Storage Mechanism and Enhanced Electrochemical Kinetics

Spinel Li4Ti5O12 as the anode material for lithium-ion batteries possessed "zero strain" characteristics, high safety, good stability, rapid Li+ diffusion rate, and fast charging and discharging performance, and has been used commercially. In this work, a porous plate-like structure for Li4Ti5O12 is constructed via an economic in situ topological reaction with H1.07Ti1.73O4 & BULL;H2O as the precursor. In terms of Li+ storage, not only the typical intercalation reaction of Li4Ti5O12 can be fully carried out, but also the Li+ storage in the form of pseudocapacitance can be introduced due to its porous structure, thus the enhanced Li+ storage mechanism can be realized and the reversible capacity in the work (197 mAh g(-1) at 0.1 A g(-1)) break the bottleneck of 175 mAh g(-1) for Li4Ti5O12. In terms of electrochemical reaction kinetics, its plate-like shape effectively avoids agglomeration of particles reducing the charge transfer resistance, and the micropores increase the diffusion rate of Li+ (3.3 times faster than the commercial Li4Ti5O12 nanoparticles). During the practical test, it can maintain the reversible capacity of 134 mAh g(-1) after 1000 cycles at the huge current density of 1.0 A g(-1) and show good compatibility with commercial LiFePO4 cathode, which proves its great practical potential for LIBs.