Electrostatic spray deposition of Li4Ti5O12 based anode with enhanced rate capability and energy density for lithium-ion batteries

Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) is one of the most promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) due to its excellent cyclability and extraordinary structure stability during lithium-ion intercalation and deintercalation. However, LTO suffers from the low electronic conductivity and low theoretical capacity, which results in poor rate capability and low energy density. The present work reviews the latest achievement on improving both energy and power density of LTO based anode materials for LIBs. In addition, our recent results on electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) derived LTO electrode is also discussed. Electrochemical test shows that the resulting LTO has a large specific capacity of 293 mAh g-1 under a current density of 0.15 A g-1 and high rate capacity of 73 mAh g-1 under 3 A g-1. As compared with commercial LTO nano-particle electrode, the improved electrochemical performance of ESD-LTO could be attributed to the structure advantages generate from ESD which could lead to reduced diffusion length for lithium ions and electrons.