Thermal Annealing Effect on Hydrothermal Synthesized Li₄Ti₅O₁₂/TiO₂ as Anode Material for Lithium-Ion Batteries

The thermal annealing effect on the morphological, structural and electrochemical properties of hydrothermal synthesized Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 / TiO 2 has been studied. Lithium titanate (Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 ) nanopowders are successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method using titanuim tetrabutyl and lithium hydroxide followed by thermal annealing process at different temperatures: 500 °C, 800 °C and 900 °C. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns indicates the appearance of the Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 phase at a temperature above 800 °C formed after the reaction of the two phases: TiO 2 and Li 2 TiO 3 which appear at 500 °C. Though, the prepared electrode by the powder annealed at 800 °C shows an initial capacity of about 173.1 mAh g −1 (0.1 C), which retained at 75.6 mAh g −1 after 100 cycles.