Hierarchical Structured Cu/Ni/TiO₂ Nanocomposites as Electrodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract

The electrochemical performance of anodes made of transition metal oxides (TMOs) in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) often suffers from their chemical and mechanical instability. In this research, a novel electrode with a hierarchical current collector for TMO active materials is successfully fabricated. It consists of porous nickel as current collector on a copper substrate. The copper has vertically aligned microchannels. Anatase titanium dioxide (TiO) nanoparticles of ∼100 nm are directly synthesized and cast on the porous Ni using a one-step process. Characterization indicates that this electrode exhibits excellent performance in terms of capacity, reliable rate, and long cyclic stability. The maximum insertion coefficient for the reaction product of LiTiO is ∼0.85, a desirable value as an anode of LIBs. Cross-sectional SEM and EDS analysis confirmed the uniform and stable distribution of nanosized TiO nanoparticles inside the Ni microchannels during cycling. This is due to the synergistic effect of nano-TiO and the hierarchical Cu/Ni current collector. The advantages of the Cu/Ni/TiO anode include enhanced activity of electrochemical reactions, shortened lithium ion diffusion pathways, ultrahigh specific surface area, effective accommodation of volume changes of TiO nanoparticles, and optimized routes for electrons transport.

Synthesis of One-Dimensional Mesoporous Ag Nanoparticles-Modified TiO2 Nanofibers by Electrospinning for Lithium Ion Batteries

“…The electrochemical performance of Ag@TiO 2 nanofibers obtained in our research is also compared with that of TiO 2 composites reported in References [23,31,32,33,34,43,45,46]. As shown in Table 1, the comprehensive electrochemical performance obtained in our research is generally superior to that reported in the above-mentioned references.…”

3D Current Collectors for Lithium‐Ion Batteries: A Topical Review

“…The increased specific surface area from Cu foam, which subsequently allowed more coating of Si microparticles, was the most significant reason for the enhanced performance of the foam–CB electrode. Figure g,h demonstrates one of our most recent research results regarding the design of 3D hierarchical binder‐using electrodes . In that research, a fibrous porous structure of Ni was deposited on the Cu sheet using an electrodeposition process.…”

“…g,h) Anatase TiO 2 nanoparticles loaded on a Cu/Ni porous current collector. Reproduced with permission . Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society.…”

Rational Design of Porous TiO2@N‐Doped Carbon for High Rate Lithium‐Ion Batteries

“…On the one hand, researchers have composite TiO 2 with high conductive carbon materials, including graphene, carbon nanotubes, graphitic carbon, N‐doped carbon, and so on. On the other hand, TiO 2 is usually coupled or doped with high capacity materials, such as Nb, Ni, Si, Sb, MnO 2 , Co 3 O 4 , etc. Although remarkable results have been achieved, these fabrication methods were still complicated and costly.…”