Facile synthesis of nanostructured vanadium oxide as cathode materials for efficient Li-ion batteries

Abstract

Homogeneous VO2 (B) nanorods approximately 100 nm in width and 1–2 μm in length have been fabricated via the hydrothermal process, and are then transformed into irregularly shaped V2O5 nanoparticles of several hundreds nanometers large and 20–30 nm thick after annealing the precursor material at 500 °C for 30 min. Both the V2O5 sheet-like nanoparticles and VO2 (B) nanorods were tested as active cathode materials for Li-ion batteries. The V2O5 sheet-like nanoparticles delivered a high discharge capacity of 281 mA h g−1 at 50 mA g−1 and 191 mA h g−1 at 2400 mA g−1; the material also demonstrated good cyclic stability with a small capacity loss of 35 mA h g−1 after 40 cycles. The VO2 (B) nanorods and V2O5 sheet-like nanoparticles prepared by the straightforward, environmental friendly and high yield route investigated in this study could prove to be promising candidates for efficient Li-ion batteries.