Recent development in portable electronics and electric vehicles have increased the demand for high performance lithium ion batteries. However, it is still challenging to produce high energy and high power lithium ion batteries. The major objective of this research is to fabricate advanced electrode materials with enhanced power density and energy density. Porous Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) and its nanocomposites (with Si and reduced graphene oxide (rGO)) synthesized by electrostatic spray deposition (ESD) technique were mainly studied and promising electrochemical performance was achieved. In chapter 3, porous LTO thin film electrode was synthesized by ESD to solve the low energy density and low power density issues by providing good ionic and electronic conductivities. Electrochemical test results showed that it had a large specific capacity of 357 mAh g-1 at 0.15 A g-1, which was even higher than its theoretical capacity. It also exhibited very high rate capability of 98 mAh g-1 at 6 A g-1. The improved electrochemical performance was due to the advantage of ESD generated porous structures. In order to further enhance the power density of LTO, ESD derived LTO/rGO composite electrodes were studied in chapter 4. In chapter 5, high energy density component Si was introduced viii into LTO composite. The synergistic effect between commercial LTO and Si powder was studied. Then, ESD derived LTO/Si/rGO composite was prepared and evaluated. At 0.15 A g-1, a stable capacity of 624 mAh g-1 was observed, which was much higher than the capacities of LTO and LTO/rGO electrodes. In addition, effect of activation process on electrochemical performance of carbon nanofibers (ACNFs) and feasibility of ion intercalation into 2D MMT montmorillonite clay (MMT) were studied and discussed in chapter 6. In summary, we have successfully synthesized various LTO based electrodes by ESD. Both high energy and high power density were achieved as compared to commercial LTO electrode. Through electrochemical characterization and charge storage distribution analysis, origins of the high rate capability were proposed. This work demonstrates ESD as a powerful tool for fabricating high performance porous structures and nanocomposite electrode materials.
