(98f) Mesoporous Crystalline Metal Oxide as Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries

Nanostructured metal oxides have been widely investigated as a key important electronic, optical, catalytic, and photocatalytic, and electrochemical materials. Great efforts have been made to synthesize high surface area mesoporous metal oxide for improved device performance in these applications. However, such mesoporous materials typically have amorphous, semicrystalline wall structures which limited its application requiring high crystallinity and stability. We have developed a novel solution growth of metal oxide nanocrystals within an organized surfactant matrix into mesoporous three-dimensional nanostructured frameworks with tunable mesoporosity, and have successfully synthesized mesoporous crystalline transition metal oxide including CeO2, SnO2, TiO2, and composite oxide TiO2/SnO2. Nanostructured TiO2 has attracted much attention in Li insertion because it is not only a low voltage insertion host for Li, but also a fast Li insertion/extraction host. These characteristics render it a potential anode material for high-power lithium-ion batteries. Our synthesized mesoporous crystalline TiO2 have been tested as anode materials for their cycling ability and stability. The mesoporous TiO2 is able to reversibly accommodate Li up to Li0.5TiO2 (168 mAh g?1) at 1?3 V versus Li+/Li with excellent capacity retention and high rate capability on cycling. Other mesoporous crystalline metal oxide including composite TiO2/SnO2 has also been studied in terms of capacities and stability as anode materials.