Cooperative enhancement of electrochemical properties in double carbon-decorated Li4Ti5O12/C composite as anode for Li-ion batteries

In this study, we presented the design and preparation of a double nano-carbon modified Li4Ti5O12 composite, where an amorphous carbon layer derived from thermal decomposition of stearic acid (SA) was coated on the surface of Li4Ti5O12, while decorated with carbon-nanotubes (CNTs) as conductive network. A series of Li4Ti5O12-SA/CNTs composite was prepared by changing the amount of added SA and CNTs, and the effects of their proportion on the electrochemical properties of the as-prepared composites were systematically investigated. It was found that when used as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), the Li4Ti5O12-CNTs/SA composite prepared by adding 0.4 wt.% (m(CNTs):mLi(4)Ti(5)O(12)) CNTs and 12 wt.% (m(SA):mLi(4)Ti(5)O(12)) SA showed the remarkably high discharge specific capacity of 215.8 mA h g (1) and the capacity retention reached as high as 96.7% with delivering a stable capacity of 145.0 mA h g (1) after 100 cycles at the rate of 5 C. Our work revealed that there is a cooperative effect resulted from adding proper proportion of CNTs and SA, enabling significant improvement of the electrochemical performances of Li4Ti5O12 as anode for LIBs. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.