Titanium-containing complex oxides as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries: a review

Lithium-ion batteries are not only popular for portable electronic devices, but also promising for electric vehicles. However, the current lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles have limited safety performances. Due to the inherently safe performances, titanium-containing oxides are regarded as promising alternatives to the traditional carbonaceous anode materials. This paper reviews the characteristics, the crystal structures and the improvements of several popular titanium-containing complex oxides, including Li4Ti5O12, Li2MTi3O8, MLi2Ti6O14 and Ti2Nb2xO4+5x. An insight into the future research directions for titanium-containing complex oxides is also provided.