2D Nanostructures of V2O5 for energy storage devices

Abstract

Nowadays we’re living in a wireless connected world. Our phones, computers, and even everyday appliances such as clocks, cameras, etc. are getting out of the grid using batteries as its main source of energy. It’s becoming more and more demanding to sustain an increase in energy consumption of these devices while maintaining a good battery life. As a result, we must develop batteries that are cheaper, better and smaller than ever before. Many batteries have been developed in the past few years, such as Nickel and sulfur batteries. But it is the lithium-ion batteries that has the most significant improve in use, due to its high stability and easiness to produce. There are plenty of ways to improve a Lithium-ion battery, and the most effective and useful is improving the cathode. For this, Nanostructured Vanadium Pentoxide, an earth rich, cheap and with higher energy density than traditional materials was used in this present work. Liquid-phase exfoliation was used to produce the nanostructure, while XRD, SEM, BET and XPS were used to confirm its structure. For the batteries, galvanostatic charge-discharge and cyclic voltammetry were used to test its performance as a cathode material.