Al-doped flower-like VO 2 (B) microspheres as high-performance cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries

VO 2 (B), as a potential cathode material for lithium -ion batteries (LIBs), is attracting extensive attention from researchers because of its great superiority in terms of theoretical specific capacity, energy density, and cost. Nevertheless, VO 2 (B), leads to irreversible decay of specific capacity during cycling for reasons including structural stability and inferior electrical conductivity. In this work, the electrochemical performance of VO 2 (B) electrode materials are further enhanced via Al ion doping. The results reveal that the prepared Al-doped 3D flower-like VO 2 (B) microspheres exhibit a high initial discharge specific capacity (as high as 314.8 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g current density) at an Al doping amount of n(Al 3 + )/n(V 5 + ) = 6.0 %. Moreover, it displays a first discharge specific capacity of up to 229.2 mAh/g at a current density of 1 A/g with the capacity retention rate of 90.0 % after 120 cycles. As a result, Al-doped 3D flower-like VO 2 (B) microspheres provide enormous commercialization potential as cathode materials for LIBs.