Hierarchical TiO2 nanoflowers percolated with carbon nanotubes for long-life lithium storage

•TiO2 nanoflowers percolated with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are designed by solution method.•CNTs improve the electronic conductivity of TiO2 nanoflowers.•The optimized TiO2@CNTs hybrids exhibit excellent cycle performance for lithium storage. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries due to its advantages such as good safety, reliability, reversible capacity, high content and environmental friendliness. However, its inherent defects such as low ion diffusion coefficient and poor electrical conductivity seriously limit its practical application. In this study, we designed a unique hybrid structure of TiO2 nanoflowers percolated with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by a low cost solution method. The hierarchical structure of TiO2 increases the specific surface area and shortens the ion/electron transport distance. CNTs are uniformly embedded in the interior of TiO2 nanoflowers to improve the overall conductivity and flexibility. As a result, the optimized TiO2@CNTs as lithium ion battery (LIBs) anode, showed excellent long-term cycle performance (177.5 mA h g−1, at 1.0 A g−1 after 600 cycles). The excellent reversibility and electrochemical kinetic performance are also studied by CV and EIS measurements. This work provides a new perspective for exploring efficient lithium storage for high performance anode materials.