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Aerosol synthesis of trivalent titanium doped titania/carbon composite microspheres with superior sodium storage performance

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Abstract

Trivalent titanium doped titania/carbon (TiO2–x/C) composite microspheres have been prepared by a facile aerosol method (ultrasonic spray pyrolysis) using titanium (IV) bis(ammonium lactato)dihydroxide (TiBALDH) as the sole precursor. The obtained TiO2–x/C microspheres have particle sizes in the range of 400–1,000 nm. When evaluated as anode material for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), they provide a high reversible capacity of 286 mA·h·g−1 with good cycling performance. A capacity of 249 mA·h·g−1 can be achieved after 180 cycles at 50 mA·g−1, which is more than three times higher than that of white TiO2 microspheres (77 mA·h·g−1). The superior sodium storage performance of these TiO2–x/C composite microspheres can be attributed to the simultaneous introduction of Ti3+ and oxygen vacancies, ultrafine grain size, as well as the conductive carbon matrix. This study provides a facile and effective approach for the production of TiO2–x/C nanocomposites with superior sodium storage performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFA0202603), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB934103), the Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (No. B17034), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51521001, 21673171, 51502226), the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51425204), China postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M592401) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (WUT: 2016III001, 2016III002, 2017III009, 2017III008), Prof. Liqiang Mai gratefully acknowledged financial support from China Scholarship Council (No. 201606955096).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, International School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Doudou Guan, Qiang Yu, Chang Xu, Chunjuan Tang, Liang Zhou, Dongyuan Zhao & Liqiang Mai

  2. Department of Mathematics and Physics, Luoyang Institute of Science and Technology, Luoyang, 471023, China

    Chunjuan Tang

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Liqiang Mai

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  1. Doudou Guan
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Correspondence to Liang Zhou or Liqiang Mai.

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Aerosol synthesis of trivalent titanium doped titania/carbon composite microspheres with superior sodium storage performance

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Guan, D., Yu, Q., Xu, C. et al. Aerosol synthesis of trivalent titanium doped titania/carbon composite microspheres with superior sodium storage performance. Nano Res. 10, 4351–4359 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1675-3

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