Sandwich-like carbon-anchored ultrathin TiO2 nanosheets realizing ultrafast lithium storage

Abstract

Lithium-ion batteries have long been considered as the most promising energy storage technology for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle applications. However, their large-scale applications are still limited by the low electrical conductivity, easy agglomeration and inferior cycling stability of the active materials. Herein, sandwich-like carbon-anchored ultrathin nanosheets are put forward for the first time as an excellent platform to achieve ultrafast lithium storage kinetics and superior cycling stability. Taking the synthetic sandwich-like carbon-anchored ultrathin TiO₂ nanosheets as an example, a capacity of 101.9 mA h g⁻¹ is achieved at a current density as high as 40 C (6.8 A g⁻¹), while a capacity of 150.4 mA h g⁻¹ is obtained even after 1200 cycles at a discharge rate of 5 C. This work develops an in situ carbonization of organic octylamine for fabricating sandwich-like carbon-anchored ultrathin nanosheets, holding great promise for the future design and synthesis of high-performance active materials for lithium-ion batteries.