Effect of the Molar Ratio of Li/Ti and Thermal Treatment on the Electrochemical Performance of Li4Ti5O12–Rutile TiO2 Nanocomposite as Anode Materials

Li4Ti5O12–rutile TiO2 (LTO–RTO) dual-phase nanocomposite anode materials show excellent electrochemical performance. However, the effects of molar ratio of Li/Ti and thermal treatment on electrochemical properties of the LTO–RTO composite have been rarely reported. In this work, LTO–RTO nanocomposites were prepared by sol-hydrothermal method with different Li/Ti molar ratios in raw materials and following calcinations at 600∘C, 650∘C and 700∘C for the different holding time. The results indicate that with the decrease of Li/Ti molar ratio, the discharge capacity of the LTO–RTO nanocomposite increases at first and then decreases, and the optimal Li/Ti molar ratio is 4:4.77, which was obtained with calcination at 600∘C for 10h. The effects of calcination temperature and holding time were further investigated. The result demonstrates that the thermal treatment has an obvious influence on the electrochemical performance due to the morphology change in the nanocomposite. The LTO–RTO nanocomposite calcinated at...