Sol–Gel Synthesis of Porous Li2TiO3 for High-Performance Electrochemical Supercapacitors

Metal titanates have been considered as one of the most promising materials for supercapacitors because of their excellent properties. In this work, porous lithium titanate (Li 2 TiO 3 ) nanomaterials were prepared by sol–gel method using lithiumhydroxide hydrate and tetrabutyl titanate as precursors and polystyrene spheres as a template. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) result revealed a large specific surface area of the Li 2 TiO 3 nanomaterials. More importantly, the porous Li 2 TiO 3 nanomaterials were examined as the electrode materials of supercapacitors. Such porous Li 2 TiO 3 nanomaterials’ electrode exhibited a specific capacitance of 195 F g − 1 at a current density of 1 A g − 1 with a capacity retention of 96.3% after 5000 cycles in 3 M KOH aqueous electrolyte. These superior results indicate that the porous Li 2 TiO 3 nanomaterials are excellent materials for high-performance energy storage devices.