Electrochemical Performance of Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ Nanowire/Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticle Compound as Anode Material of Lithium Ion Batteries

Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ as one of the commercialized materials, is famous for its excellent reversibility, but also suffered from two drawbacks- low theoretical capacity and difficulty in SOC estimation. In this study, we report a Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ nanowire/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle compound synthesized by hydrothermal method as anode material for lithium ion battery. By in-situ synthesizing Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles on the surface of Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ nanowire, particle size of Fe₃O₄ is remarkably reduced and this resulting in good reversibility of electrode. Moreover, this Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ nanowire/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle compound exhibits much larger capacity than pure-phase Li₄Ti₅O₁₂. And most importantly, the Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ nanowire/Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle compound displays a slope voltage profile, which makes the voltage based SOC estimation much easier than Li₄Ti₅O_12.