Electrospun PAN Membranes Strengthened in Situ Grown TiO 2 Particles for High-Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries

Abstract The electrostatic spinning method with polyacrylonitrile as the spinning precursor was used to investigate the performance of battery separator prepared from tetrabutyl titanate and isopropyl titanate as two titanium source precursors hydrolyzed under the inhibition of acrylic acid to produce different contents of TiO 2 for lithium-ion batteries. The experimental results showed that when both titanium sources were prepared at 3 wt%, the comprehensive performance of the separator manufcatured with tetrabutyl titanate as the titanium source (PAN/TBT-3) and isopropyl titanate as the titanium source (PAN/TPT-3) was finest than that of the Celgard 2400 and the composite membrane with direct TiO 2 addition (PAN/TiO 2 -3). The tensile strength of PAN/TPT-3 and PAN/TBT-3 membranes were 7.82 MPa and 4.03 MPa higher than that of Celgard 2400, and 13.29 MPa and MPa higher than that of PAN/TiO 2 -3 separator, respectively. PAN/TPT-3 and PAN/TBT-3 membranes exhibited a discharge capacity of 107.72 mAh/g and 115.79 mAh/g at 2 C, both the capacity retention rate was above 99.5% higher than 80.5% for Celgard 2400.