Sodium titanate nanorods decorated with silver nanoparticles as a high-performance anode material for sodium-ion batteries

Sodium titanate (Na2Ti6O13) exhibits great potential as a sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) anode material, nevertheless the limited electronic conductivity markedly hampers its applications. To combat this shortcoming, carbon coating has been widely employed to fabricate Na2Ti6O13/C composites; however, this method requires a high-temperature processing that is energy-intensive releases environmental pollutants. Herein, silver is used as a novel conducting agent, and we demonstrated a simple and efficient method to prepare Ag@Na2Ti6O13 composites. We find that nano-sized silver particles (3%) are well distributed on the Na2Ti6O13 surface, leading to boosted conductivity of the composites. As a result, the Ag@Na2Ti6O13 electrode exhibits an excellent performance for Na+ insertion, where after 100 cycles a discharge capacity of 189 mAh g-1 is achieved, demonstrating superior capacity retention of 97.9%. The result of silver coating on the battery performance was investigated coherently by various techniques, such as electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Our work provides a feasible approach to prepare electronically conductive compounds for battery applications.