Fabrication of Cu-Doped Li4Ti5O12 Particles Embedded in Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanosheets for High-Rate Lithium-Ion Battery Anode

This study presents the synthesis of Cu-doped Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) and Cu-doped Li4Ti5O12@reduced graphene oxide (rGO) anode materials via a simple wet chemical approach combined with freeze-drying. The LTO-0.1Cu@rGO anode delivers an ideal rate capacity of 376, 350, 327, 297 and 259 mAh g−1 at 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 5.0 A g−1, respectively, and exhibits stable, long-life cyclic performance of 223.0 mAh g−1 at 5.0 A g−1 after 1000 cycles with 94.8% retention. This superior electrochemical performance is attributed to the unique structure of Cu-doped LTO particles that are uniformly embedded within a conductive, interconnected rGO network. Therefore, these results indicate that combined doping and coating strategies have great potential for enhancing the electrochemical properties of LTO anodes for LIBs.