TiO2 hollow spheres with large amount of exposed (001) facets for fast reversible lithium storage

We report a simple approach for synthesizing uniform hollow spheres assembled from anatase TiO2 nanosheets with large amount of exposed (001) facets. These hierarchical TiO2 hollow spheres possessing a high specific surface area of 134.9 m(2) g(-1) manifest a high Coulombic efficiency for lithium extraction, excellent capacity retention, and superior rate behaviour owing to the hollow structure and unique crystal faceting of the building blocks.