Balancing the Ion/Electron Transport of Graphite Anodes by a La-Doped TiNb₂O₇ Functional Coating for Fast-Charging Li-Ion Batteries

A functional coating layer (FCL) is widely applied in fast-charging lithium-ion batteries to improve the sluggish Li⁺ transport kinetics of traditional graphite anodes. However, blindly increasing the Li⁺ conductivity for FCL reduces the overall electron conductivity of the anodes. Herein, we decoupled the effect of La-doping on TiNb₂O₇ (TNO) in terms of the phase evolution, Li⁺/electron transport, and lithiation behavior, and then proposed a promising La_0.1TNO FCL with balanced Li⁺/electron transport for a fast-charging graphite anode. By optimizing the doping concentration of La, more holes are introduced into the TNO as electron carriers without causing lattice distortion, thus maintaining the fast Li⁺ diffusion channel in TNO. As a result, the graphite with La_0.1TNO FCL delivers an excellent capacity of 220.2 mAh g^-1 (96.3% retention) after 450 cycles at 3 C, nearly twice that of the unmodified one.