Titanium niobate (Ti2Nb10O29) anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon foams as flexible and self-supported anode for high-performance lithium ion batteries.

• Ti 2 Nb 10 O 29 (TNO) anchored on melamine carbon foam was synthesized. • Self-supported and flexible TNO@MCF could keep stable 3D conductive network. • TNO@MCF showed remarkable high-rate capacity and superior cycling stability. • TNO@MCF still showed reversible capacities of 315 mA h g−1 after 100 times of compression-rebound. Assembling active materials on flexible conductive matrixes for fabricating high-rate, self-supported and durable anodes is essential for the development of high-power flexible lithium-ion batteries. In this study, we report an efficient combinational strategy for producing hybrid composites (TNO@MCF) of Ti 2 Nb 10 O 29 (TNO) anchored on melamine carbon foam (MCF) via a hydrothermal method. The N -doped MCF not only showed good electronic conductivity and flexibility, but also improved the ion transport performance of the composites. The TNO@MCF electrode exhibited remarkably high rate capacities (327 mA h g−1 at 1 C, and 205 mA h g−1 at 40 C) and excellent cycling stability with a high capacity retention of 81.4% after 1000 cycles at 10 C. After 100 compression-rebound cycles, the TNO@MCF electrode showed a reversible capacity of 315 mA h g−1 at 1 C and exhibited a capacity retention of 72.3% for 1000 cycles at 10 C. This compressible structure design could provide guidelines for manufacture of other flexible electrodes for energy storage devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]