Hydrogenated vanadium oxides as an advanced anode material in lithium ion batteries

Current research on vanadium oxides in lithium ion batteries (LIBs) considers them as cathode materials, whereas they are rarely studied for use as anodes in LIBs because of their low electrical conductivity and rapid capacity fading. In this work, hydrogenated vanadium oxide nanoneedles were prepared and incorporated into freeze-dried graphene foam. The hydrogenated vanadium oxides show greatly improved charge-transfer kinetics, which lead to excellent electrochemical properties. When tested as anode materials (0.005–3.0 V vs. Li/Li⁺) in LIBs, the sample activated at 600 °C exhibits high specific capacity (∼941 mA·h·g⁻¹ at 100 mA·g⁻¹) and high-rate capability (∼504 mA·h·g⁻¹ at 5 A·g⁻¹), as well as excellent cycling performance (∼285 mA·h·g⁻¹ in the 1,000^th cycle at 5 A·g⁻¹). These results demonstrate the promising application of vanadium oxides as anodes in LIBs. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].