Ultradispersed Nanoarchitecture of LiV₃O₈ Nanoparticle/Reduced Graphene Oxide with High-Capacity and Long-Life Lithium-Ion Battery Cathodes

Lack of high-performance cathode materials has become the major barriers to lithium-ion battery applications in advanced communication equipment and electric vehicles. In this paper, we report a versatile interfacial reaction strategy, which is based on the idea of space confinement, for the synthesis of ultradispersed LiV₃O₈ nanoparticles (∼10 nm) on graphene (denoted as LVO NPs-GNs) with an unprecedented degree of control on the separation and manipulation of the nucleation, growth, anchoring, and crystallization of nanoparticles in a water-in-oil emulsion system over free growth in solution. The prepared LVO NPs-GNs composites displayed high performance as an cathode material for lithium-ion battery, including high reversible lithium storage capacity (237 mA h g^-1 after 200 cycles), high Coulombic efficiency (about 98%), excellent cycling stability and high rate capability (as high as 176 mA h g^-1 at 0.9 A g^-1, 128 mA h g^-1 at 1.5 A g^-1, 91 mA h g^-1 at 3 A g^-1 and 59 mA h g^-1 at 6 A g^-1, respectively). Very significantly, the preparation method employed can be easily adapted and may opens the door to complex hybrid materials design and engineering with graphene for advanced energy storage.