Nanowires-Assembled TiO2 Nanorods Anchored on Multilayer Graphene for High-Performance Anodes of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Junming Xu; Dongfang Chen; Jianfeng Wu; Jun Wu; Jijun Zhou; Tao Zhou; Xinchang Wang; Jipeng Cheng

doi:10.3390/nano12203697

Nanowires-Assembled TiO₂ Nanorods Anchored on Multilayer Graphene for High-Performance Anodes of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Oct 21;12(20):3697. doi: 10.3390/nano12203697.

Authors

Junming Xu¹, Dongfang Chen¹, Jianfeng Wu², Jun Wu¹, Jijun Zhou¹, Tao Zhou¹, Xinchang Wang³, Jipeng Cheng^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ College of Electronic Information, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
² College of Information Science & Technology, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou 310015, China.
³ School of Physics and Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China.
⁴ School of Materials Science & Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.

Abstract

Multilayer graphene (MLG) prepared via ultrasonic exfoliation has many advantages such as its low-cost and defect-free nature, high electronic conductivity, and large specific surface area, which make it an apt conductive substrate for TiO₂ composites. To synthesize graphene/TiO₂ hybrids, traditional methods that greatly depend on the chemical bond of oxygen-containing functional groups on graphene with titanium cations are not applicable due to the absence of these functional groups on MLG. In this work, a facile chemical method is developed to directly deposit TiO₂ on the MLG surface without the introduction of chemically active groups. With this method, four types of TiO₂ materials, that is pure anatase TiO₂ nanoparticles, a mixture of anatase TiO₂ nanoparticles and rutile TiO₂ nanoflowers, pure rutile TiO₂ nanoflowers, and pure rutile TiO₂ nanorods, are homogeneously anchored on the MLG surface by controlling the amount of HCl in the reactant. Interestingly, the rutile TiO₂ nanorods in the TiO₂/MLG composite are assembled by many TiO₂ nanowires with an ultra-small diameter and ultra-long length, which provides a better synergetic effect for high performances as LIB anodes than other composites. A specific capacity of 631.4 mAh g^-1 after 100 cycles at a current density of 100 mA g^-1 is delivered, indicating it to be a valuable LIB anode material with low cost and high electrochemical performances.

Keywords: LIB anodes; TiO2 nanorods; TiO2 nanowires; composites; multilayer graphene.

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 62175056) and the Zhejiang Provincial Science and Technology Program under Grant LGG20F010007.