High surface area V₂O₅ aerogel intercalation electrodes

Supercritical drying of V₂O₅ gels yields amorphous aerogels (ARG) that serve as reversible, high capacity hosts for lithium ion intercalation. We have found that ARG material consists of a highly interconnected solid network that has a surface area up to 450 m²/g and a specific pore volume of 2.3 cm³/g. The material hosts at least 4 Li⁺ per mole of V₂O₅ (ARG) as determined by both galvanostatic intermittent titration (GITT) and chemical lithiation (CL) techniques. The equilibrium voltage-composition curve is identical for both GITT and CL techniques as well. V₂O₅ (ARG) has a specific energy in excess of 1600 Wh/kg, the highest ever reported for any vanadium oxide host.