The synergistic effects of nanoporous fiber TiO2 and nickel foam interlayer for ultra-stable performance in lithium-selenium batteries

Abstract Selenium is an attractive choice of cathode material for lithium-ion batteries because of its high electronic conductivity and high theoretical volumetric capacity. In this report, a Se-TiO2 cathode with a nickel foam interlayer has been designed and tested for lithium-selenium batteries. In this particular architecture, selenium is first mixed with TiO2 nanofibers to form a Se-TiO2 composite by a melt-diffusion process. Next, a nickel foam foil (NFF) is introduced as an interlayer between the electrode and separator. The synthesized Se-TiO2/NFF exhibits reversible discharge capacity of 600.4 mAh g−1 at 0.5C (1C = 675 mA g−1) after 200 cycles, and delivers a discharge capacity as high as 321.3 mAh g−1 even at 30C. This superior electrochemical performance can be ascribed to the synergetic adsorption and fixation of TiO2 and NFF.