Balancing the Ion/Electron Transport of Graphite Anodes by a La-Doped TiNb2O7 Functional Coating for Fast-Charging Li-Ion Batteries

Yeliang Sheng; Xinyang Yue; Wei Hao; Yongteng Dong; Yakun Liu; Zheng Liang

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c05151

Balancing the Ion/Electron Transport of Graphite Anodes by a La-Doped TiNb₂O₇ Functional Coating for Fast-Charging Li-Ion Batteries

Nano Lett. 2024 Mar 27;24(12):3694-3701. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c05151. Epub 2024 Feb 27.

Authors

Yeliang Sheng¹, Xinyang Yue¹, Wei Hao^{1

2}, Yongteng Dong¹, Yakun Liu², Zheng Liang¹

Affiliations

¹ Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.

Abstract

A functional coating layer (FCL) is widely applied in fast-charging lithium-ion batteries to improve the sluggish Li⁺ transport kinetics of traditional graphite anodes. However, blindly increasing the Li⁺ conductivity for FCL reduces the overall electron conductivity of the anodes. Herein, we decoupled the effect of La-doping on TiNb₂O₇ (TNO) in terms of the phase evolution, Li⁺/electron transport, and lithiation behavior, and then proposed a promising La_0.1TNO FCL with balanced Li⁺/electron transport for a fast-charging graphite anode. By optimizing the doping concentration of La, more holes are introduced into the TNO as electron carriers without causing lattice distortion, thus maintaining the fast Li⁺ diffusion channel in TNO. As a result, the graphite with La_0.1TNO FCL delivers an excellent capacity of 220.2 mAh g^-1 (96.3% retention) after 450 cycles at 3 C, nearly twice that of the unmodified one.

Keywords: Fast-charging; Li dendrite; Li plating regulation; Lithium-ion battery; TiNb2O7 functional coating.