Spray Drying-Assisted Synthesis of Li₃VO₄/C/CNTs Composites for High-Performance Lithium Ion Battery Anodes

Li 3 VO 4 is a promising insertion anode material for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), but has the drawback of low electronic conductivity. Here, we have developed a facile spray drying route to synthesize Li 3 VO 4 /C/CNTs (carbon nanotubes) composites with hollow spherical morphology. In this composite, Li 3 VO 4 nanocrystals are interconnected by CNTs to form an integrated electronic conducting particle. Owing to the high specific surface and hierarchical porous structure, Li 3 VO 4 /C/CNTs composites also possess higher apparent Li + ions diffusion coefficient. The resulting Li 3 VO 4 /C/CNTs composites exhibit much better rate capability than the pristine Li 3 VO 4 . A high reversible capacity of 272 mAh g −1 can be maintained up to 500 cycles at 10 C (86.1% retention of the 2nd charge capacity). Moreover, the synthetic method is facile and scalable, thus as-prepared LVO/C/CNTs composites can be a promising anode material for high-safety LIBs.