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Lithium titanium disulfide cathodes

Nature Energy volume 6, page 214 (2021)Cite this article

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It is now almost 50 years since the first rechargeable lithium batteries, based on the reversible intercalation of lithium into layered structured titanium disulfide, were conceived. They were the precursor to the structurally related layered oxides that now dominate energy storage for electronics, the grid and vehicles.

In 1972, Exxon Corporate Research mounted an intensive research effort to broaden their interests beyond petroleum and chemicals to the broad energy area, which would include batteries, fuel cells and solar photovoltaics. At that time the layered transition metal dichalcogenides were of interest for their superconducting properties, which could be readily modified by the intercalation of electron donors, such as amines1. One of those superconductors was KxTaS2, which was readily formed by the immersion of single crystals of TaS2 into a KOH aqueous solution2. That this material was stable suggested that it was a salt-like compound with a high energy of formation.

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  1. Chemistry Department, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY, USA

    M. Stanley Whittingham

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  1. M. Stanley Whittingham
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Correspondence to M. Stanley Whittingham.

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Whittingham, M.S. Lithium titanium disulfide cathodes. Nat Energy 6, 214 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00765-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00765-7

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