High Rate and Stable Li-Ion Insertion in Oxygen-Deficient LiV3O8 Nanosheets as a Cathode Material for Lithium-Ion Battery

Low performance of cathode materials has become one of the major obstacles to the application of lithium-ion battery (LIB) in advanced portable electronic devices, hybrid electric vehicles, and electric vehicles. The present work reports a versatile oxygen-deficient LiV3O8 (D-LVO) nanosheet that was synthesized successfully via a facile oxygen-deficient hydrothermal reaction followed by thermal annealing in Ar. When used as a cathode material for LIB, the prepared D-LVO nanosheets display remarkable capacity properties at various current densities (a capacity of 335, 317, 278, 246, 209, 167, and 133 mA h g-1 at 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 mA g-1, respectively) and excellent lithium-ion storage stability, maintaining more than 88% of the initial reversible capacity after 200 cycles at 1000 mA g-1. The outstanding electrochemical properties are believed to arise largely from the introduction of tetravalent V (∼15% V4+) and the attendant oxygen vacancies into LiV3O8 nanosheets, leading to intrinsic electrical conductivity more than 1 order of magnitude higher and lithium-ion diffusion coefficient nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than those of LiV3O8 without detectable V4+ (N-LVO) and thus contributing to the easy lithium-ion diffusion, rapid phase transition, and the excellent electrochemical reversibility. Furthermore, the more uniform nanostructure, as well as the larger specific surface area of D-LVO than N-LVO nanosheets may also improve the electrolyte penetration and provide more reaction sites for fast lithium-ion diffusion during the discharge/charge processes.