This invention provides a
graphite or
graphite-carbon particulate for use as a
lithium secondary battery
anode material having a high-rate capability. The particulate is formed of a core carbon or
graphite particle and a plurality of
satellite carbon or graphite particles that are each separately bonded to the
core particle wherein the
core particle is spherical in shape, slightly elongate in shape with a major axis-to-
minor axis ratio less than 2, or
fibril in shape, and wherein the
satellite particles are disc-,
platelet-, or flake-like particles each containing a graphite
crystallite with a crystallographic c-axis dimension Lc and a lateral dimension. Preferably, Lc is less than 100 nm and the flake /
platelet lateral dimension is less than 1 μm. The
core particle may be selected from
natural graphite, artificial graphite, spherical graphite, graphitic
coke, meso-carbon micro-bead, soft carbon, hard carbon, graphitic
fibril, carbon nano-
fiber, carbon
fiber, or graphite
fiber. Preferably, the flat-shaped particles are randomly oriented with respect to one another.