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Updated: May 31, 2025

Spark Plasma Sintering Apparatus Used for the Formation of Strontium Titanate Bicrystals
Published on: February 9, 2017
Crystal Growth and Structural Analysis of Layered Lithium Titanium Sulfide
Fumitaka Hayashi1, Maru Kashiwazaki1, Masaki Moriwaki1
1Department of Materials Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University, 4-17-1 Wakasato, Nagano 380-8553, Japan.
Abstract:
Layered sulfide crystals are suitable hosts for lithium and sodium ions in batteries. In this study, new layered lithium titanium sulfide (LTS) crystals were grown in a sealed silica tube using a Li2S self-flux at 800-950 °C. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis results indicated the formation of a new sulfide phase with higher symmetry in the Li-Ti-S system. The chemical compositions of the resulting crystals were estimated to be Li1.8TiS2.7 from elemental analysis, and indexing the XRD pattern of LTS afforded lattice constants and the monoclinic space group C2/m (no. 12). Based on these results, an initial structural model of LTS was constructed and verified using Rietveld refinement. The characterization results indicated that the grown LTS crystals had a layered structure with lithium and silicon deficiencies in Li2TiS3. The use of Li2S self-flux at 950 °C enabled the effective growth of LTS crystals with sizes of 10-20 μm. Electrochemical measurements confirmed the Li+ insertion-extraction characteristics of the LTS crystals.
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