Autogenic reactions for preparing carbon-encapsulated, nanoparticulate TiO2 electrodes for lithium-ion batteries

We report an anhydrous, autogenic technique for synthesizing electronically interconnected, carbon-encapsulated, nanoparticulate anatase anode materials (TiO2-C) for lithium-ion batteries. The TiO2-C nanoparticles provide a reversible capacity of similar to 200 mAh g(-1), which exceeds the theoretical capacity of the commercially attractive spine! anode, Li4Ti5O12 (175 mAh g(-1)) and is competitive with the capacity reported for other TiO2 products. The processing method is extremely versatile and has implications for preparing, in a single step, a wide variety of electrochemically active compounds that are coated, in situ, with carbon. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.