Electrochemical behavior of interconnected Ti2Nb10O29 nanoparticles for high-power Li-ion battery anodes

We synthesized polycrystalline Ti2Nb10O29 nanofibers (NFs) via a simple post-annealing process of aselectrospun polymeric NFs as an anode material for Li-ion batteries (LIBs). During the first discharge/charge process, the Ti2Nb10O29 NFs annealed at 900 C-circle exhibited insertion/extraction capacities of up to 344 and 304mAhg (1), corresponding to 19.1 and 16.7 mol Li+ per formula unit, respectively. This material exhibited excellent rate capability (93mAhg (1) at 15 Ag (1)) and a higher average diffusion coefficient (D-Li = similar to 1.5 x 10 (12)cm(2) s (1)) than Ti2Nb10O29 powder (similar to 6.9 x 10 (13)cm(2) s (1)). This performance can be attributed to the unique nanostructure of firmly interconnected, highly crystalline Ti2Nb10O29 nanograins, which facilitates the Li+ and electron transport. The kinetics obtained from current-voltage curves indicate a mixture of diffusion-limited and capacitive processes. The suggested electro-spinning/post annealing approach can effectively provide a simple route towards high-quality Ti2Nb10O29 NF-based anodes for high-performance LIBs. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.