Preparation And Characterization Of Li₄Ti₅O₁₂ Powders

Li₄Ti₅O₁₂is a Lithium titanium composite oxides with pinel structure,earlier it had been researched as a superconducting material, and it wasintroduced as an ode materials of lithium ion battery in the80s. But it cannot getmuch attention by the lower potential and energy density compared with othermaterials. With the rapid development of modern society, it is widely used inportable electronic equipment: electric car, environmental protection and hybridcommunication equipment. The battery performance requirements have becomemore sophisticated, such as specific capacity, discharge capacity, circle life,safety, etc. To solve the problems, we can start from product better batterymaterial.The main preparation methods include that solid phase method andhydrothermal method. To explore the effects of hydrothermal temperature,hydrothermal time, sintering time and milling time, XRD and SEM will be used.The raw materials of the hydrothermal mathod is Tetra-n-butyl Titanate andLiOH H₂O. Hydrothermal medium is alcohol-water mixture. It is phase single,small particle size of lithium titanate powder that was prepared by hydrothermaltreatment and subsequent calcination process. The results show that Li:Ti=2:1,The best hydrothermal temperature is180℃heat10hours. Li₄Ti₅O₁₂containless impurity phase when Li:Ti=2:1, hydrothermal temperature of180℃heat10hours, calcined at750℃for3hours.The higher the hydrothermal temperature,the longer the hydrothermal time is,the more serious of the reunion. The solidphase method of raw materials based on TiO2and Li2CO3by ordinary milling,high-energy ball milling and calcined Li₄Ti₅O₁₂powder. The results show thatLi:Ti=4:5, ordinary milling10min,800℃calcined2hours. The product phaseof the highest purity.Russian ground high-energy ball milling10min,750℃calcined1hours. The product phase of the highest purity and the finest particlesize, reaching1μm.The results show that, under the proper hydrothermal temperature, millingtime and sintering time, we can get massive lithium-titanate powders that form by spherical particles. But with lower hydrothermal and milling temperature,shorter hydrothermal time, the powders will become bigger and not uniform anylonger, the morphology of the powders will be worse, while there will be somemass polymerized powders which assemble big sphere.On base of the results above, the preparation of lithium titanate powderswere analyzed and discussed. The results show that the temperature and time ofreaction and sintering have a significant effect on product.