Preparation and electrochemical properties of vanadium pentoxide aerogel film derived at the ambient pressure

V2O5 aerogel materials has received much significant attention recently as it can be used as highly promising cathodic materials for Li-ion batteries. A novel kind of V2O5 aerogel materials, ambient dried V2O5 aerogel films were reported in this paper. The films were deposited by the dip-coating method and dipped into acetone and cyclohexane by turn to exchange the solvent in the films. Atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction topography (XRD), ellipsometry, and electrochemical measurements were employed to characterize the aerogel films. The porosity of the aerogel films is 56%, 16% higher than that of the xerogel films when dried at 120 °C. The aerogel films have the higher capacity, as well as better reversibility than those of the xerogel films. The improvement of the capacity can be ascribed to the increase of porosity as well as the pore diameters after the solvent exchange.