Excellent long-term cycling stability of La-doped Li4Ti5O12 anode material at high current rates

La-doped Li4Ti5O12 (LLTO) was prepared by a simple approach using tetrabutyl titanate, LiOH·H2O and La(NO3)3·6H2O as raw materials, followed by sintering the dried mixture at 600 °C for 5 h. Without requiring any further treatments, the as-obtained LLTO could exhibit excellent long-term cycling stability, high coulombic efficiency close to 100% at various charge–discharge rates, outstanding capacity retention at high current rates of 10–50 C, remarkable performance in the temperature range from −40 to 60 °C, good cycling performance even subjected to overcharging to about 10 times of the reversible capacity. The La-doped LTO could be directly used as efficient anode materials for lithium-ion batteries.