Recent progress and perspectives of defective oxide anode materials for advanced lithium ion battery

Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have become an indispensable part of human development and our lives, from spaceships to deep-sea submersibles as well as ordinary electronics. Since it was proposed in the 1970s and commercialized in 1991, LIBs have been pursuing higher energy, higher power, higher safety and higher durability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop more efficient anode materials to overcome the capacity and rate bottlenecks of commercial graphite. Oxide anodes stand out in terms of high capacity and working potential, e.g., Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ has been a high-performance safe anode material. Yet developed early, most of oxide anodes suffer from low conductivity, low initial coulombic efficiency and large volume change during lithium/delithiation process. Recently, defect engineering has significantly improved the performance of oxide anodes and alleviated the above problems. In this review, we present the fundamentals, challenges and recent research progress on defective oxide anodes of LIBs. Firstly, the development history of LIBs and oxide anode is briefly introduced. Then, the definition, classification, preparation method, structure-function relationship between defect structure and electrochemical performance are introduced in detail, as well as the development perspective of defect oxide anode.