In this book chapter, we have discussed the recent results on vanadium oxide-based materials for energy storage applications. Primarily, we present the new results from our own research group on V2O5-layered nanostructures that are made from a facile wet chemistry synthesis. By fine control of the synthetic condition, the morphology, crystallinity, and layer-to-layer distance of V2O5 nanostructures can be tuned. Particularly, highly disordered V2O5 nanolayers which have an interplanar distance up to 1.1 nm, offering a fast transport of K-ion between layers in an aqueous electrolyte and hence the high-energy storage capacity and power density. Uniqueness of our results includes materials characterization and measurements using multiple spectroscopic tools, including synchrotron X-ray pair distribution function (PDF) analyses and in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD). Combined with half-cell and button-cell electrochemical measurements, the complementary results provide insight on the ionic transport of ions between the layers of V2O5 nanostructure.
Part of the book: Alkali-ion Batteries