Annealing Temperature Effects of TiO2 Nanofiber Anodes for the Rechargeable Lithium Ion Batteries

TiO2 nanofibers（TiO2/NFs） have been synthesized through an electrospinning method and annealed at 400, 500 and 600 ℃ to optimize their systems. The effects of annealing temperature on the electrochemical properties for lithium ion batteries（LIBs） are assessed. The obtained LIB properties for TiO2 nanofiber anodes annealed at 400 ℃（denoted as TiO2/NFs-400） are much better than those of TiO2/NFs-500 and TiO2/NFs-600. The TiO2/NFs-400 anodes show good LIB performance with capacities of 180 and 150 m Ah/g tested at 200 and 600 m A/g after 100 cycles with almost no capacity loss and superb rate performance. The XRD results show that the pure anatase phase TiO2 can form at 400 ℃ for TiO2/NFs-400, while mixed phases of anatase and rutile are emerged at TiO2/NFs-500 and TiO2/NFs-600. Furthermore, the TiO2 nanoparticles are combined in nanofibers, and their corresponding crystal particle size for TiO2/NFs-400 was smaller than that of the other two samples. It is concluded that the superior electrochemical performance of the TiO2/NFs-400 anodes could be due to their pure crystal of anatase, small nanoparticles and non-ideal crystal lattices.

A Liquid-Liquid Interface Process for Fabricating TiO2 Nanofiber Membrane with High Photocatalytic Activity

A membrane consisting of TiO2 nanofibers was successfully fabricated through a simple solvothermal water/n-hexane interface reaction of tetra-n-butyl titanate with NaOH followed by post treatments of acid washing and calcination. Tetra-n-butyl titanate reacts with NaOH at the interface to form high-quality nanofibers with lateral dimensions below 200 nm and longitudinal dimensions of several tens of micrometers. The membrane is formed by the interpenetration and overlapping of the flexible nanofibers and distributed by holes with sizes ranging from several tens of nanometers to several hundreds of nanometers. Because of the porous structure, this nanofiber membrane exhibited a high efficiency in the photodecomposition of dyes in water.

Enhanced Pseudo‑Capacitive Contributions to High‑Performance Sodium Storage in TiO2/C Nanofibers via Double Effects of Sulfur Modification

Pseudo-capacitive mechanisms can provide higher energy densities than electrical double-layer capacitors while being faster than bulk storage mechanisms.Usually,they suffer from low intrinsic electronic and ion conductivities of the active materials.Here,taking advantage of the combination of TiS2 decoration,sulfur doping,and a nanometer-sized structure,as-spun TiO2/C nanofiber composites are developed that enable rapid transport of sodium ions and electrons,and exhibit enhanced pseudo-capacitively dominated capacities.At a scan rate of 0.5 mV s−1,a high pseudo-capacitive contribution(76%of the total storage)is obtained for the S-doped TiS2/TiO2/C electrode(termed as TiS2/S-TiO2/C).Such enhanced pseudocapacitive activity allows rapid chemical kinetics and significantly improves the high-rate sodium storage performance of TiO2.The TiS2/S-TiO2/C composite electrode delivers a high capacity of 114 mAh g−1 at a current density of 5000 mA g−1.The capacity maintains at high level(161 mAh g−1)even after 1500 cycles and is still characterized by 58 mAh g−1 at the extreme condition of 10,000 mA g−1 after 10,000 cycles.

Improved performance of direct methanol fuel cells with the porous catalyst layer using highly-active nanofiber catalyst

PtRu supported on TiO2-embedded carbon nanofibers(PtRu/TECNF),which was recently reported as a highly-active catalyst for methanol oxidation,was applied to a direct methanol fuel cell(DMFC),and the power generation performance was compared to that using the commercial PtRu/C.Before the comparison,the effect of the catalyst loading on the power density of the DMFC was investigated using PtRu(18 wt%)/TECNF.The DMFC power density showed a maximum at about a 1.5 mg cm
2 PtRu loading that corresponds to about an 80 mm layer thickness.A catalyst layer thicker than this value reduced the power density probably due to the concentration overvoltage.The PtRu content in the PtRu/TECNF was then increased to 30 wt%or more to reduce the layer thickness and to increase the power density.The DMFC performance was compared to that of different anode catalysts at a 1 mg cm
2 PtRu loading.The power density was maximized using the PtRu30 wt%/TECNF,which showed a 173 mW cm
2 at 353 K and had 66 mm layer thick,that was 26%higher than that of commercial PtRu/C.The current–voltage curve of the DMFC with the PtRu/TECNF suggested an improved mass transport overvoltage,but a little improvement in the activation one despite using the catalyst with about a 2 times higher activity compared to that of the commercial PtRu/C.This was attributed to the lower Pt utilization of the nanofiber catalyst layer.