Review on titanium dioxide nanostructured electrode materials for high-performance lithium batteries

Lithium-ion batteries have been successfully employed as energy banks in various technological devices, but their performance and strength are unsatisfactory in most high-energy consuming applications. Additionally, uncontrollable lithium dendrite growth at the lithium negative electrode and the inferior shuttle effect often led to serious battery safety problems. As alternatives, lithium-sulfur and lithium-air batteries with higher theoretical specific capacities that could match high-consuming applications are under development. Contemplating the deployment of lithium-sulfur and lithium-air batteries for sustainable energy storage, practical and economical electrodes fabricated using catalytically active and earth abundant materials are crucial, in addition to the replacement of graphite, which leads to dendrite formation problems, causing explosions, amongst other safety problems. Nanostructured Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has gained considerable attention as electrode materials in lithium batteries, as well as to the existing and potential technological applications, as they are deemed safer than graphite as negative electrodes. Due to their potential, their application has been extended to positive electrodes in an effort to develop much safer batteries, with earth abundant anode ad cathode materials. To this end, this review comprehensively analyses the influence of TiO2 nanostructure type, doping or integration with other materials to identify highly active and cyclable TiO2 based nanomaterials for lithium batteries. The discussions on the prospects vital for improving TiO2 nanostructured materials as anode and cathode active materials for lithium batteries are also highlighted.