Optimizing the performance of Li₄Ti₅O₁₂-ZnO nanorods by addition of activated carbon for lithium-ion battery anode

Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) was a promising candidate as a lithium-ion battery anode for EV (electric vehicles). However, LTO has low electrical conductivity and capacity. Thus, it was necessary to add active carbon and ZnO nanorods to the LTO compound. Li4Ti5O12/C-ZnO nanorods were obtained by using the sol-gel method for TiO2 synthesis and the solid-state method for TiO2 mixing process with a lithium hydroxide source and C-ZnO nanorods. Activated carbon has the role of increasing electrical conductivity, while the ZnO nanorod was expected to increase the capacity. This study has three weight variations of activated carbon, i.e., 1 wt.%, 3 wt.%, and 5 wt.%, while the weight percentage of ZnO nanorods was kept constant at 4 wt.%. The characterization of the samples was examined using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The battery performance of the samples was obtained by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), and Charge-Discharge (CD) testing after being assembled into coin cell batteries. The results showed that the Li4Ti5O12/5%C-ZnO nanorods have the highest specific capacity of 112 mAh/g with a charge transfer resistivity of 123 ohms. According to the Brunner-Emmet-Teller (BET) test, the largest surface area was 63.51 m2/g with a crystallite size of 85 nm. From this research, it can be concluded that Li4Ti5O12/5%C-ZnO nanorods are the most optimized composition as anode material.