A safe and fast-charging lithium-ion battery anode using MXene supported Li3VO4

During fast charging, the commonly used Li-ion battery anode material, graphite, has a significant shortcoming, that is, its discharge potential is too low to guarantee the safety of batteries. Li3VO4 (LVO), an alternative anode material, has a safe discharge potential window of 0.5V to 1.0 V vs. Li+/Li and high theoretical capacity (approximate to 394 mA h g(-1)). However, the poor conductivity of LVO (approximate to 10(-10) S m(-1)) constrains its further applications. In this paper, we innovatively embedded uniform LVO onto a multilayered material, Ti3C2Tx MXene, by a sol-gel method. The Ti3C2Tx MXene nanolayers with high electrical conductivity (2.4 x 10(5) S m(-1)) served as a scaffold to load LVO nanoparticles. The LVO/Ti3C2Tx MXene composite exhibited remarkable electrochemical performance in terms of rate capability and long-term cycle stability in comparison with bare LVO and commercial graphite anodes. The LVO/Ti3C2Tx MXene composite delivered an initial capacity of approximate to 187 mA h g(-1) and 146 mA h g(-1) after 1000 cycles at 5C, compared to bare LVO (an initial capacity of approximate to 41 mA h g(-1) and approximate to 40 mA h g(-1) after 1000 cycles at 5C) and graphite (approximate to 71 mA h g(-1) after 1000 cycles at 5C). This work opens new possibilities of anode materials for safe and fast-charging Li-ion batteries.