ABSTRACTA fundamental study of the Li insertion behavior of a series of materials consisting of a TiO2 core having MoO3 on the surface has been carried out in order to determine the influence of the shell. These TiO2-(MoO3)z materials, where (z) denotes the fraction of coverage from a partial to a double layer, range in diameter from 40-100 Å. Calculations have been done on their theoretical lithium capacity using a maximum of Li0.5TiO2 for the core, and Li1.5MoO3 at the TiO2/MoO3 interface, and they have been compared to that found experimentally. The reversible Li-insertion capacity was shown to increase from 0.34 per Ti for the pure TiO2 sample, to 0.91 Li per transition metal when the MoO3 coverage increased to one monolayer. There was only one plateau observed in the electrochemical scans for the samples showing that they function as a single-phase material making them interesting for electrodes. The redox voltage of the TiO2/Li0.5TiO2 biphasic transformation increased 60 mV from the pure TiO2 to the sample containing one monolayer of MoO3. This effect was interpreted as due to a change in TiO2 surface charge coming from an inductive effect of Ti-O-Mo bonds.
Correction: Topology of transition metal dichalcogenides: the case of the core–shell architecture