Silicon-titanium nanocomposite synthesized via the direct electrolysis of SiO2/TiO2 precursor in molten salt and their performance as the anode material for lithium ion batteries

In this paper, a facile metallurgical method named molten salt electrolysis was introduced to synthesize silicon-titanium nanocomposite that was used as the anode for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Simply utilizing SiO2 and TiO2 mixture as the raw materials, upon the direct electrolysis in the molten salt chamber, the oxide precursor was reduced constantly to the complete production of silicon-titanium nanocomposite. Benefiting from the compositional and structural advantages of sample, the as-obtained silicon-titanium anode delivered enhanced reversible specific capacity and good cycling stability such as the initial discharge capacity of 1410.5 mAh g−1 with the columbic efficiency of 80.72% and reversible 638.1 mAh g−1 with a high retention of 92.2% just after the anode cycling for 50 times. The average specific capacity fading percentage was only 0.16% per cycle between the 4th to 50th cycles, the result of which showed a good electrochemical performance for lithium ion storage.