Cathodic performance of V2O5 nanowires and reduced graphene oxide composites for lithium ion batteries

Abstract In this study, vanadium pentoxide (V 2 O 5 ) nanowires (NWs) with a diameter of 100–200 nm and a length of up to several micrometers as cathode for lithium ion batteries are synthesize using an electrospinning method. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and V 2 O 5 NWs (GVO) composites are form by wet mixing the electrospun V 2 O 5 NWs and rGO. Surface morphologies, microstructure and elemental mapping, and chemical bonding states of the composites are characterize. The initial and 60 cycles discharge capacities of GVO composite composed of 1 wt% rGO show up to 225 mAh g −1 and 125 mAh g −1 , even higher than pure V 2 O 5 NWs, when the lithium ion battery cycled between 2.0 and 4.0 V with a rate of 0.2 C, because of highly conductive rGO. The GVO composite could be promising as a high performance cathode for lithium ion batteries.