Substantially enhanced rate capability of lithium storage in Na2Ti6O13 with self-doping and carbon-coating

Na2Ti6O13 (NTO) has recently been reported for lithium ion storage and showed very promising results. In this work, we report substantially enhanced rate capability in NTO nanowires by Ti(iii) self-doping and carbon-coating. Ti(iii) doping and carbon coating were found to work in synergy to increase the electrochemical performances of the material. For 300 cycles at 1C (1C = 200 mA g(-1)) the charge capacity of the electrode is 206 mA h g(-1), much higher than that (89 mA h g(-1)) of the pristine NTO electrode. For 500 cycles at 5C the electrode can still deliver a charge capacity of 180.5 mA h g(-1) with a high coulombic efficiency of 99%. At 20C the capacity of the electrode is 2.6 times that of the pristine NTO. These results clearly demonstrate that the Ti(iii) self-doping and uniform carbon coating significantly enhanced the kinetic processes in the NTO nanowire crystal, making it possible for fast charge and discharge in Li-ion batteries.