Biomimetic layer-by-layer Co-mineralization approach towards TiO2/Au nanosheets with high rate performance for lithium ion batteries.

We fabricated a sandwich-like branched-polyethyleneimine (b-PEI)/TiO2/Au/graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposite through a biomimetic layer-by-layer co-mineralization approach, and the polymer b-PEI was believed to act as both an inducing agent for the hydrolysis of titanium bis(ammonium lactato)-dihydroxide (Ti-BALDH) and a reducing agent for the reduction of HAuCl4 in the synthetic procedure. Upon organic pyrolysis in air at 500 °C, a TiO2/Au nanosheet was formed; and gold nanocrystals were observed uniformly dispersed on TiO2 nanosheet. Moreover, the obtained TiO2/Au nanosheets demonstrated an enhanced lithium storage performance when they are used as anode materials for lithium ion batteries (LIBs), particularly, a high capacity of 205 mA h g(-1) and 189 mA h g(-1) was obtained at 5 C and 10 C rate, respectively, indicating the high rate capability of the material. The greatly improved rate performance might be attributed from both the sheet-like nanostructure and the existence of uniformly dispersed gold nanocrystals, which facilitate electron transfer and lithium ions diffusion in the material. The result suggests that the TiO2 electrode performance can be improved through a design of sheet-like nanocomposites using a bio-inspired route, which is desirable for both "green synthesis" and application for high power LIBs, moreover, such a benign bio-inspired route can be developed into a general pathway to synthesize many other TiO2 based nanocomposites for broad applications in the fields of batteries, photoelectrochemistry, photocatalysis and dye-sensitized solar cells.