Enhanced cycling stability of Cu-V2O5 composited with low-fraction rGO as cathodes for lithium ion batteries

Highlights: • rGO/Cu-V₂O₅ composite has been synthesized by a heating refluxing process. • The composite exhibits high content of active Cu-V₂O₅ and low fraction of rGO. • Low-fraction rGO enhances conductivity and cycling stability of composites. • Composite exhibits high discharge specific capacity of 246.6 mA h g⁻¹ at 1 C. -- Abstract: Although lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been commercialized, they are still troubled by weak cycling stability. Herein, the rGO/Cu-V₂O₅ composites as cathode was successfully synthesized via a simple solid-state chemical route followed by a heated reflux process. The rGO/Cu-V₂O₅ composites presents a high content of dominant active Cu-V₂O₅ and a low fraction of rGO (less than 3%). Low-fraction rGO compositing enhances the electronic conductivity of rGO/Cu-V₂O₅ composites, enabling to partially expose to the surface of the composites, which favors the efficient and fast transfer of the electrons and ions at the liquid-solid interface for improving long-acting cycling stability. Accordingly, the rGO/Cu-V₂O₅ cathode in LIBs exhibits a high discharge specific capacity of 246.6 mA h g⁻¹ at 1 C (1 C = 294 mA h g⁻¹), delivers a robust cycling stability with a capacity retention of 82.5% after 200 cycles at 1 C. This work offers a practicable tactics to develop the tremendous potential cathode materials with low-fraction conductive matrix for Li-based energy storage domain.