LiVOPO4 hollow microspheres:: One-pot hydrothermal synthesis with reactants as self-sacrifice templates and lithium intercalation performances

Self-produced template (usually bubbles and carbon particles) methods have been adopted to obtain micrometer and nanometer-scaled hollow spheres. In this paper, we report the preparation of alpha-LiVOPO4 hollow spheres through a hydrothermal reaction of LiOH center dot H2O, V2O5, H3PO4, and N2H4 center dot H2O at 250 degrees C for 48 h. During this procedure the reactant, V2O5 particles, served as the template and was consumed without any residues when the hydrothermal reaction was completed. Therefore, such a self-sacrifice template method makes large-scale production of alpha-LiVOPO4 hollow spheres feasible. alpha-LiVOPO4 hollow spheres were exploited as both cathode and anode materials for lithium ion batteries.