Low-Temperature Synthesis of Lithium Lanthanum Titanate/Carbon Nanowires for Fast-Charging Li-Ion Batteries

Due to the lower working voltage and higher capacity, the Li-rich lithium lanthanum titanate perovskite (LLTO) anode is becoming a potential candidate for the commercial Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) Li-ion battery anode [Zhang, L. Lithium Lanthanum Titanate Perovskite as an Anode for Lithium Ion Batteries. Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 3490]. However, a high temperature of 1250 °C is required to fabricate pure LLTO particles by the conventional solid-phase calcination method, limiting their further practical applications. Here, an in situ carbon nanospace confined method is developed to synthesize the pure LLTO with sub-nanometer grain size at an extremely low temperature of 800 °C. The LLTO precursor is confined in the in situ formed carbon nanowire matrix during heating, resulting in a shorter solid-phase diffusion distance and subsequently lower energy required for the formation of the pure LLTO phase. The low-temperature-synthesized pure LLTO/carbon composite nanowires (P-LLTO/C NWs) exhibit improved lithium storage performances than the traditionally prepared LLTO due to the fast electronic conduction of carbon and the stable carbon surface. In addition, the working potentials of P-LLTO/C||LiFePO4 and P-LLTO/C||LiCoO2 full cells are all 0.7 V higher than that of the corresponding commercial full cells with LTO as an anode, meaning much higher power energy densities (307.6 W kg-1 at 2C and 342.4 W kg-1 at 1C vs 198.4 W kg-1 and 275.2 W kg-1 for LTO||LiFePO4 and LTO||LiCoO2 full cells based on electrode materials, respectively). This low-temperature synthesis method can extend to other solid-state ionic materials and electrode materials for electrochemical devices.